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STUDENT TEACHERS IN URBAN HIGH SCHOOLS:
AN INTERVIEW STUDY OF NEOPHYTES IN NEVERLAND
A Dissertation Presented
by
WILLIAM R. COMPAGNONE
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
September 1995
School of Education
©Copyright by William R. Compagnone 1995
A Dissertation Presented
by
WILLIAM R. COMPAGNONE
W. Jackson, Dean
1 of Education
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Without the aid and encouragement of many people, I would never have been able to
complete this dissertation. The student teachers I worked with allowed me to share in their
of my doctoral committee, Dr. Richard Clark and Dr. Patt Dodds, provided me with
valuable feedback, the willingness to meet with me whenever I desired and the reassurance
I needed to push ahead. The chairman of my committee, Dr. Irving Seidman was my
guiding light throughout my doctoral program. His wisdom, his sensitivity, his
goals with seriousness and deep commitment. My children, Chris and Gina, excused my
time away from them with graciousness and sympathy. My wife, Gail, kept me focused
when I was exhausted and provided invaluable service in the process of transcribing
interviews.
I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Josephine, and my late father, Silvio; they
IV
ABSTRACT
SEPTEMBER 1995
the urban high school experience of fifteen student teachers through the words of the
participants. It attempts to analyze the way they make meaning of their current experience
as it relates to their background in terms of race, gender, class, education and family
society through the perspective of critical pedagogy. It fleshes out the contradictions
Three ninety minute interviews were conducted with each of fifteen student teachers
near to or at the end of their practicums in urban high schools. In addressing the question
of what it is like to student teach in an urban high school today, this study finds that student
teachers do not feel they are adequately prepared to deal with the complex issues they face
in the classrooms and corridors of urban high schools. It specifically discusses issues
v
involving race, gender, tracking, supervision, attendance, grading, discipline and the
This study proposes a two year program. The first year would include two courses on
issues in urban education and a prepracticum. The second year would include two paid
ten-week practicums, one at an urban, the other, a suburban location. The practicums
This study also calls for university training culminating in a mentor certificate for
cooperating teachers as well as a reduced teaching load. It asks for a consistent policy
concerning in-class observations. It suggests that college supervisors have some teaching
experience in secondary schools and that teaching assistants who serve as college
vi
PREFACE
backdrop, Chapter I discusses the status of urban education in the United States in the
1990's in terms of historical and current problems, issues, constraints and opportunities
facing educators and students. Chapter II first reviews relevant literature on student
teaching and then examines the function of urban education in a democratic society
through the perspective of critical pedagogy. Within a capitalist context, I flesh out the
veteran urban educator. Chapter HI details the methodology and procedures for carrying
out this study, in particular examining the nature and appropriateness of in-depth
data from the interviews concerning issues which directly affect the urban practicum.
Chapter XII presents a profile of Julie Boswick, a participant in my study. Chapter XHI
vi 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .iv
ABSTRACT . v
PREFACE . vii
Chapter
A. Question .1
B. Purpose .1
C. The Status of Urban Education in the 1990's .2
D. Major Issues . 3
E. Gender .4
F. Race . 5
G. Class .6
H. Urban Education Reform Efforts .10
I. Urban Education in the 1990's .12
• • •
vm
6. Resistance .32
7. Economic, Cultural and Political Spheres .34
8. The Urban Disadvantage .36
9. The Increasing Inclusivity of Critical Pedagogy.39
10. Empowerment and Emancipation.42
11. The Function of Urban Education .45
12. A Sampling of Urban Reality .45
13. Reflections on My Experience .47
1. Triangulation .59
2. Peer Debriefing .60
3. Member Checking .60
M Conclusion .60
IX
V. GENDER ISSUES IN THE URBAN PRACTICUM 86
x
4. Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone: What Happens When the
Cooperating Teacher Cuts Dowd Observing Time .138
5. Just Let Me Be: The Happy Medium between Too Much and Not
Enough Observation by the Cooperating Teacher .142
6. Do What I Say: Acceding to the Cooperating Teacher's Demands .145
7. Purgatory: The Urban Practicum as a Dispenser of Humility .149
8. The Good Old Days: The Tension Caused by the Duality of Being
a Student Teacher .151
9. Working with an Incompetent Cooperating Teacher.153
xi
xn. JULIE BOSWICK: A PROFILE 201
A. Introduction.201
B. The Early Days . 201
C. High School Days .203
D. Post High School Days .206
E. Teacher Education Classes .207
F. The Urban Practicum.210
G. Ruminations .226
BIBLIOGRAPHY . 255
xn
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
Xlll
CHAPTER I
i
A. Question
dissertation reconstructs the experience of student teachers during their urban high school
urban high school today, I explore the ways student teachers make meaning of their current
experience as it relates to their backgrounds in terms of class, gender, race, education and
family upbringing. If we can understand what it is like to student teach in an urban high
school today, we might be able to improve our preparation of student teachers for their
B. Purpose
In this dissertation I examine the meanings student teachers make of their experiences
teaching in urban secondary schools. Studying these experiences might help teacher
recognizing areas of ease and difficulty based on the stories presented, teacher educators
may better understand issues of importance to student teachers and be able to share that
understanding in courses which will prove useful to student teachers when they face the
reality of the urban classroom. The information gleaned from this study may also serve as
This dissertation may provide future student teachers with an empathetic view of the
vicissitudes in the daily life of a student teacher in an urban high school. Shared
1
2
experiences can alleviate some of the stress of student teachers who internalize the
successes and failures of their classroom performance and often view them as unique to
themselves.
This dissertation may also prove valuable to cooperating teachers by helping them view
academic and social issues in the classroom through the eyes of a novice who faces those
issues for the first time. The years of experience which help provide veteran educators
with a critical eye can also prevent them from appreciating the fear and anxiety of student
teachers who do not have the benefit of an established reputation or an arsenal of materials
# Continuing development of gangs which become the center of many students' lives.
# Influx of non-English speaking immigrants into the U.S.A. primarily into urban areas.
With conditions such as these, it is no wonder that urban education in the 1990's is
indeed in dire straits. Add to this the growing pressure from multiple voices and multiple
perspectives to develop schools which are truly inclusive in terms of ideology, curriculum
and personnel, and you have what appears to be a task of immense proportions.
D. M^jor Issues
By focusing specifically on issues such as gender, "race" and class, we can identify what
research reveals about urban education in the 1990's. The concerns which we discuss,
however, must be viewed in a broad context which takes into consideration social, political,
moral and economic factors. Too often the American public blames public education and
and business leaders who need a scapegoat for the nation's economic woes and who
provide statistics which prey on the fears and suspicion of the American public, David
Berliner (1992) presented factual data which disputed claims ranging from the diminishing
intelligence of American students based on lower IQ scores, lower SAT scores and lower
standardized achievement scores to claims stating that the amount of money spent in per
Noting the remarkable success of the American school system in the face of the
obstacles it must overcome, Berliner advises that greater school improvement will stem
from providing poor people with decent jobs which allow them to live with dignity than
4
from tampering with curriculum, instruction, standards and tests. While his position is
based on all public schools, it is clear that the latter remark targets people who live in the
urban sector. Berliner by no means exonerates the public school system from all blame;
there are concerns which need to be addressed, and we will examine those.
ELQgndgr
Among the questions which need answers are those asking whether or not public
schools in general and urban schools in particular are shortchanging girls. In 1992 the
AAUW Report: How Schools Shortchange Girls.” This study, which synthesizes the bulk
of research on the subject of girls in schools, clearly shows evidence that girls receive
neither equal quality nor equal quantity of education as boys. In terms of measured ability,
girls and boys are roughly equal when they begin their educational careers, yet by the end
of high school girls are behind boys in most areas, especially the key areas of higher-level
While girls in general receive less attention from their teachers than boys,
African-American girls have even fewer interactions with teachers than do white girls
(AAUW, 1992). Because the majority of students of color are from the working class and
because the majority of students of color are enrolled in lower level courses, it is clear that
African American girls find themselves at the bottom of the pecking order. Low
socioeconomic status, in fact, affects access to educational outcomes and school resources
According to the AAUW Report, slightly less than half of girls who drop out of school
cite pregnancy as the reason. Puerto Rican and Cuban American girls are more likely to
drop out than boys from the same culture or other Hispanic girls. Traditional gender roles
which place more caretaking responsibilities on girls contribute to the fact that thirty-seven
percent of girls compared to five percent of boys cite family related problems as the reason
for dropping out. Sexual harassment of girls by boys is also increasing. In urban schools,
where the percentage of students of color and of low socioeconomic status is growing, girls
F,R<icg
Projections indicate that by the year 2000 one third of the population in the United
States will consist of persons of color (Banks, 1991). By the year 2020 forty-six percent of
the nation's student population will be comprised of students of color (Banks, 1991). In
fact, in twenty-five of the nation's largest cities, students of color already account for half
Among the minority groups, the Hispanic population is growing faster than any
other—five times faster than the rest of the U.S. population. In terms of education,
Hispanics lag behind. Only fifty-one percent of Hispanics had completed high school as
is increasing dramatically—from nine percent of the nation's school age population in 1988
The African American community is also growing, yet it lags behind other groups in
terms of economic prosperity. Fifty-five percent of African Americans are in the lower
6
class (Banks, 1991). Median income for African American families in 1987 was $17,604
compared to $30,809 for European Americans and $19,995 for Hispanics. Perhaps a
more injurious statistic is the unemployment rate-fifteen percent for African Americans as
compared to six percent of European Americans, and among teenagers, the unemployment
rate for young African Americans is a staggering thirty-nine percent (Banks, 1991).
It is in the urban sector that these factors have the greatest impact. The community in
which I teach (Lawrence, Massachusetts) is perhaps the most extreme example state-wide
of the minority explosion. Figure 1 illustrates Lawrence's enrollment changes from 1986
though 1991. This study graphically indicates the fifteen percent increase in minority
percent. Since this study was performed, minority enrollment has increased to
Perhaps more telling are the results displayed in Figure 2. In 1991 students whose first
language was other than English accounted for seventy-four percent of the student
population-the highest in the Northeast. Figure 3 indicates that 3,600, or one out of every'
three students in Lawrence, cannot perform classroom work in English. The challenge to
G. Class
from America's cities to the suburbs beginning in the 1960's. What remains is an increased
1993). As the gap widens between the rich and the poor, the pressure placed on urban
14,000
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
TOTAL ENROLLMENT
* 5,457 students were enrolled in regular education
1,786 in special education
3,600 in Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE).
* 67 percent of that population can be classified as low income students
who receive free or reduced lunch, or whose families receive AFDC, or
who are wards of the state.
14,000
12,000
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
MINORITY ENROLLMENT
* From 1986 to 1991, minority enrollment increased by 15 percent.
* At 77 percent, Lawrence’s minority enrollment is one of the highest in
Massachusetts.
Figure 1
8
Figure 2
14,000
12,000
10,000
8.008
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Figure 3
9
school systems to bridge this gap continues to grow as well. Analysts have attempted to
identify the source of the problems, generally blaming the students, the teachers, the school
system, or political and economic factors. As far back as the turn of the century, working
class children were described as lacking the customary experience, language capability,
emotional well being, confidence, and discipline of middle class youth (Manny, 1915).
deficiencies.
of minorities in the underclass, the issue of class has often been overshadowed by the issue
of race as a debilitating factor limiting the possibility of escaping the lowest echelon of
William Julius Wilson (1978) saw race as declining in significance and class as pre-eminent
in the subjugation not only of African Americans but of poor European Americans,
Hispanics and Native Americans. Whereas the old barriers were designed to dominate and
limit the total African American population, Wilson saw the new barriers as creating
hardships for the underclass and particularly for the African American underclass.
Within social and institutional spheres, racism is still prevalent, but in the economic
sphere it is class which has become the dominant factor in providing access to power.
Accordingly, African Americans who are talented and educated are entering positions of
power and prestige at a rate equal to or greater than their European American counterparts.
Unfortunately this creates an even wider schism between them and those African
those ensnared by poverty to adapt and react to their situation. In analyzing Latin
American poverty, the late Oscar Lewis (1968) noted that once the culture of poverty
comes into existence, it tends to perpetuate itself through generations because of its effects
on children. By the age of seven, most children have already internalized the values of
their subculture and often deal with their situation by succumbing to it (Lewis, 1968).
Welfare dependency, a lack of ambition, work ethic and self-reliance have been viewed as
With the passage of the Education Reform Apt (1993) in Massachusetts, the issue of
school choice is a prime example of how class discrimination can be employed as a weapon
cost of five-thousand dollars per child payable to the host community by the community
from which the child comes, cities such as Lawrence could easily lose half a million dollars
or more. That amount is enough to cause serious fiscal damage to the school system.
When affluent suburbs choose not to participate in school choice, however, the moral
damage to adjacent city youth may be even more devastating. "Undesirable students are
not wanted in our school system" is a phrase I hear spoken explicitly, loudly and clearly in
the suburbs surrounding Lawrence. Class issues are indeed at the heart of the urban
dilemma.
In the early sixties, reformers began grappling with the growing concern over the
between the culture of the school and the culture of the family. Alternative explanations
11
(Goodman, 1966) included a clash of values between lower class students and middle class
teachers. A bureaucracy which held teachers to stringent rules and standardized testing
Two federal initiatives, the National Teacher Corps and Trainers of Teacher Trainers,
(Weiner, 1993). Ultimately both failed, one because of the inability of individual teachers
to serve as change agents in the face of institutional pressures and the other because of
resistance of local personnel, but they at least were able to bring national focus to the issue
The seventies saw the emergence of a new strategy —"Competency Based Teacher
Education," and this concept gained immediate and widespread popularity. Its major
precept was that teachers should master a series of explicit competencies required of all
effective teachers. An outgrowth of this idea was that teachers and schools should be held
accountable for students' academic failures. Predicated on a business concept, this model
saw teaching programs and faculty as input and student achievement level as output
(Omstein & Talmage, 1973). When coupled with the advent of multicultural education, it
stressed the need for teachers to change their negative expectations toward poor and
African American children in particular. What was left out, however, was the social
With the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, national attention was focused on the
state of public schools and the children they served. Because of the economic resurgence
occurring within the country, alarm was raised about the dwindling supply of highly skilled
graduates who could handle the more demanding technological jobs. Of equal concern
12
was the growing supply of poorly skilled graduates who would enter the unemployment
In the quest for excellence, reforms demanding new standards for achievement without
the resources to bring children up to those standards simply enlarged the gap between the
"educational haves and have-nots" (Bastian et al, 1986). Recognizing inequity and
establishing standards which, if met, would eliminate or at least reduce that inequity
amplified the need for a solution. One of the ways deemed feasible to achieve
the Holmes Group, the National Commission for Excellence in Teacher Education, the
t
American Federation of Teachers, and "A Nation Prepared" (Weiner, 1993) suggested
This differentiation in staffing, however, was seen by many critics as potentially harmful
hierarchy in an already bloated bureaucracy. Haberman (1988) called for special training
and a special license to teach in urban systems. Tewel (1988) saw it as possibly
Perhaps the only thing that can be agreed on about urban education in the 1990's is that
it is more complex than ever before. In Preparing Teachers for Urban Schools Weiner
(1993) sees the context in which urban education occurs as shaped by "the confluence of a
vast number of factors, including a community's political culture and a school's history, the
racial and social composition of the school community, the student's and the teacher's
13
gender, race, class and personality" (p. 80). In Framing Dropouts: Notes on the Politics of
an Urban Hi2h School Michelle Fine (1991) did an ethnographic study of New York City
high school students. In examining the conditions which exist in their broadest social
context, Fine was able to identify four circumstances leading to the dropout rate of urban
high school students. They include those who left for economic, family and social reasons;
those who saw no hope for the future and therefore had no incentive to remain in school;
those who were absent for long periods of time and were dropped from the rolls; and those
Within the parameters of this categorization is one of the dilemmas which urban
educators face: initiatives for improvement might work for students in any one of these
circumstances but not work for others. Curricular reform might prove successful for those
who are bored with current offerings or methodology, but it would not necessarily affect
students who suffer from abuse or poverty. No matter how well intentioned educators and
legislators are, they must realize that schools cannot cure all of society's ills alone and that
there simply are no easy, uncomplicated solutions. In order to fulfill their potential, schools
must serve as one of many change agents in positively affecting the lives of young people
to help them become responsible and caring citizens in a democratic society. Selective
personnel must devise complex multi-faceted solutions to address urban students' problems.
working in the system need to be sensitive to the needs of their students. Student teachers
must be especially aware of the importance of their role. They represent the future of
education and as such create the perceptions which teachers and students will develop and
retain concerning where that future is headed In order to be successful, however, student
14
teachers need to understand the nature of their captive audience and the environment in
which that audience is situated Good intentions are not enough; neither is strictly
following "the road not taken" in an attempt to avoid repeating the perceived failure of
veteran teachers. We need to understand how student teachers manage to survive their
apprenticeship amidst the complexities of the urban setting and what they bring to it We
need to convey that understanding through our teacher preparation programs to new
In attempting to answer the question of what it is like to student teach in an urban high
school, it is necessary to review what we already know about the student teaching
experience as revealed in the literature. While there arc quantitative studies on student
teachers, some which evolve from preconceptions held by student teachers or from
relationships of student teachers with cooperating teachers, I have found four ethnographic
methodology. Although Britzman's (1985) study does focus on the interaction between the
student teacher's biography and the social structure of the school, it involves two student
teachers in suburban schools and focuses as well on the roles of significant others in the life
of a student teacher. ODonnell's (1990) study focuses on student teachers and their
relationship to the tracking system using in-depth interviews. Smith's (1991) study focuses
concern. Major ones include the effects which previous beliefs, university education
courses and the school site have on student teachers. Another involves the tenuous
relationship among members of what is commonly known as the triad (the student teacher,
the university supervisor and the cooperating teacher). The importance of context, that is,
15
16
the classroom and the public school system where the practicum takes place, has been
identified as a topic requiring serious attention. The specific issue of reflective teaching
and socialization as a process through which student teachers learn to be teachers looms
large in the studies of student teaching. Several studies on reforming the way we prepare
What student teachers believe prior to their teacher education programs and how those
beliefs are affected by their training are topics that have undergone close scrutiny. Many
studies (Goodman, 1988; Hollingsworth, 1989; Lortie, 1975; McNeil, 1986; Zeichner &
Tabachnick, 1981) have strongly affirmed the opinion that teacher education programs
have little influence on student teachers' prior beliefs. Zeichner and Liston (1987) talk
about how much unlearning has to go on in order to overcome the strong influence of prior
experience.
Student teachers undergo a powerful socialization into teaching from their own twelve
years of schooling (Lortie, 1975). Because of the subjective nature of teaching, learning
by experience seems more realistic and acceptable than learning through academic
coursework. By delving into their past experiences, particularly those which they
reproducing the past rather than paying attention to the immediate needs of the students
before them. Instead of critically reflecting, student teachers find solace in imitating their
environment that promotes ideal images (Hoy, 1967). There is some uncertainty, however,
as to the extent the teacher education program affects the teaching perspective of
neophytes (Lortie, 1975; Zeichner, 1981). What was commonly assumed about the
liberalizing role of the university may actually be a myth (Goodman, 1986; Tabachnick,
Popkewitz, & Zeichner, 1980). Many aspects of teacher preparation are actually
conservative and emphasize reflection of factual rather than critical aspects of teaching.
Methods courses may simply be aiding student teachers in their attempt to teach lessons to
Because many teacher education programs are constructed in a way that utilizes
turn out like existing teachers although she does not totally negate the possibility of their
learning some new ideas. The evaluation of student teachers, furthermore, is often based
on their social acceptability rather than their teaching proficiency (Guyton & McIntyre,
1990). Enough questions have been raised to justify skepticism as to whether the effects of
the university teacher education programs are washed out by school experience (Zeichner
Even student teaching may do veiy little to change the opinions of student teachers
specific classroom activities, many of which are required. The result is limited control by
18
the student teacher and limited interaction with students other than what is related to the
task at hand (Tabachnick, Popkewitz, & Zeichner, 1979). Student teachers often reject or
at the very least ignore advice from university supervisors during their infrequent visits
teachers are often oblivious to what is going on outside the classroom and will therefore be
unprepared for the enormous range of responsibilities they will eventually have to assume
The triad is composed of the student teacher, the university supervisor and the
cooperating teacher. Within this relationship, the student teacher is often subjected to
stress when the expectations of the cooperating teacher and the curriculum and regulations
of the school are in direct contrast to those of the university. Once away from the
university campus, many student teachers inevitably end up adopting the philosophy of
By the end of the second week of their practicum, many student teachers disregard the
teachings of their university instructors and attribute their practices to the cooperating
teacher (Richardson-Koehler, 1988). This simply adds to the denigration of the role of the
university supervisor whose status is already perceived within both school and university as
lacking prestige (Goodlad, 1990). One of the results of this low status is the assignment of
university nor are their schedules adjusted to fulfill their mentoring responsibilities. Despite
the obvious influence of cooperating teachers on their student teachers, however, case
studies show that student teachers are often denied involvement in the reasoning process of
shows that preparation of cooperating teachers for their roles does result in positive attitude
Part of the problem lies in the difficulty of placing a square peg (the more liberal,
authoritarian framework of the school). Hoy (1967) measured the attitudes of almost three
hundred student teachers in Oklahoma using the Pupil Control Ideology Scale (PCI).
pupil ideology by the end of the practicum. More than one hundred student teachers were
involved in Hoy's replication of this experiment ten years later (Hoy and Rees, 1977). The
Too much of the quality of the student teaching experience is dependent on school sites
which are not specifically designed to prepare student teachers for teaching and are not
under the direct auspices of the university (Copeland, 1981). Classrooms reflect
conservative attitudes and have rigid and highly structured curricula, making it difficult to
(Goodman, 1983). The tension which exists between the university and school and the
fear of upsetting the fragile balance in the triad often results in an unwillingness on the part
offer critical responses to each other or to their student teachers (Zimpher, DeVoss, &
Nott, 1980).
North America, Zeichner (1992) studied what he termed conceptual and structural
obstacles to student teacher learning in the practicum. Conceptual obstacles center around
the ways the terms reflection, reflective teaching, and reflective practitioner have preserved
the subordinate position of the teacher in the schooling process while creating an illusion of
The first conceptual barrier involves student teachers neglecting their own or teachers'
barrier involves the limitation of the reflective process exclusively to the means of
instruction (the teaching skills and strategies) thus neglecting the ends of instruction (its
value). The third barrier involves student teachers reflecting on their own teaching and
their own students while neglecting to reflect on the social conditions in the schools; this
creates an individualist bias. The fourth barrier involves the encouragement of student
teachers to think by themselves rather than to reflect with others as a social practice
Structural barriers are also delineated into four categories (Zeichner, 1992). The first
involves the placement of student teachers in individual classrooms, thus reinforcing the
21
perception of teaching as an isolated activity. The second barrier involves the selection of
the placement site on the basis of convenience rather than on what would be the best
teaching experience for the individual. The third barrier is the unevenness in supervisory
relations and the nebulous evaluative roles of the university supervisor and the cooperating
teacher. The fourth barrier concerns the lack of placements in multicultural settings,
resulting in little preparation for student teachers to teach in schools with greater diversity.
Zeichner sees the professional development school as a means of overcoming these barriers
by transforming the practicum and linking teacher education and school reform.
Martin Haberman (1988) is one of the few authors who has focused specifically on the
preparation and recruitment of urban teachers. He has suggested the following reforms for
1. A major portion of university-based preparation should occur within the urban public
school.
2. Courses should be taught by university faculty and teachers from the school site.
3. New teacher education faculty should develop a special urban education curricula.
6. States and school districts should provide resources for teacher preparation at school
sites, redirecting state funds now given to schools of education.
Haberman's basic contention is that, because of the unique challenge that urban
education presents, urban teachers require special training and a special license. He goes
22
on to say that urban teachers should have a "truncated career" (Habennan, 1988, p. 23) of
five to eight years because of the incredible demands placed on them. Habennan is not
alone in his quest for teacher education reform. John Goodlad (1990,1991) has also
Goodlad's four major suggestions for reform include the creation of unified faculty
groups composed of representatives from both the university and school who have equal
authority. These include those who teach education courses, those who teach content area
courses, and those who supervise student teachers. A second suggestion calls for the
creation of a professional development center operated jointly by the university and the
school. This center would prevent inappropriate placement of student teachers in locations
that are too far from the university's influence and where the possibility of cloning the
cooperating teacher exists. A third restructuring involves the relationship between theory
s
and practice. Instead of teaching theory first and hoping students see its relationship to
practice after, Goodlad proposes putting the analysis of practice first and bringing the
theory and principles to it. A fourth restructuring would abolish state mandated courses
and substitute examinations, thus bringing education in line with the medical and legal
fields.
for Accreditation of Teacher Education (1991, p. 7), proposed going even further.
Concerned with the economic rationale which often dictates hiring unqualified teachers or
allowing teachers to teach outside of their content areas, he advocates creation of a quality
accreditation (now underway with the National Standards Board for Teacher Certification)
and a strong state licensing system. Gone would be alternate certification practices which
in some cases allow individuals to teach without a college degree and with no direct
training for leadership of students in a classroom. Wise maintains that until all teachers are
well educated and carefully licensed, the public will neither trust nor respect the teaching
profession.
between the school and university based on common application of effective teaching
research. The second relationship is entitled critical dissonance which finds its source in
incongruity between the school and university based on a radical critique of teaching and
Although her terminology is different, her argument for collaborative resonance as a means
Making connections between the past experience and present practice of student
teachers is one way of using life histoiy as a valuable methodology for gaining
understanding of the way people learn to teach. If we are to employ life history in this
capacity, however, we can not divorce it from the political, economic and social forces
24
which helped shape it. It is not enough to be reflective if that reflection is not achieved in
context. The individual record of a person's life is not created in a vacuum. Those factors
that contribute to shaping identity—class, gender, race—are no less important than how
those factors become affective because of the larger political, economic and social context
in which they exist. Teachers are more than individuals with various skills and dispositions,
according to Zeichner and Gore (1990); they are also gendered members of generations,
As the experience of student teachers in urban high schools is the primary focus of this
which to view this study. Can critical theory provide me as a researcher with a perspective
which will help me understand and interpret that experience? This question will be
brief description of my background which will provide the reader with contextual
information through which he or she can better understand the way I make sense of
relevant phenomena,
l. Aytobipsraphical Bias
immersion in this seething cauldron of life goes far beyond fascination—it is an inexorable
meaning of their schooling, so too is the reader's awareness of what I bring to this study in
attempting to understand the experience of student teachers in the urban setting 1 have
grown to love.
The son of a shipping room foreman who was a second generation Italian American, I
am, like many of my peers, the first in the family to attend college. The American Dream
Prospect Hill, symbolically and literally a higher location. My father worked six
twelve-hour days per week and drove a cab part-time. He understood what the word,
sacrifice, meant. Economic reality dictated his career. A college education was not even a
remote possibility for him; on me he pinned his hopes and dreams. The vehicle which
urban high school which I attended—Lawrence High School. In 19741 became Chair of
the English Department, a position which I still hold and one which has afforded me the
opportunity of serving in a teaching and administrative capacity. At the time of this writing
Amherst.
This biographical information only hints at the possible biases I may possess. Knowing
of the discrimination against my grandparents, parents and even myself because of our
26
Italian ethnicity and our Catholic religion, I oppose those who discriminate against anyone
for reasons of race, religion, class or ethnicity. My negative experience with landlords
(when I was a youngster) and the negative aspersions cast upon all Lawrencians by those
from affluent suburbs have made me extremely sensitive and protective of inner city kids
and suspect of people who are wealthy or powerful. Lastly my twenty-four years of
teaching and administrative experience at Lawrence High School and the constant barrage
of comments I have had to bear from my colleagues in other school systems (e.g., "do you
know karate?") as a result have made me painfully aware of the ignorance of many
suburban educators.
2. The Begrorongs.oLaJSolutjofl
population which is largely working class in nature. Reading levels of students stretch from
primer through twelfth grade. School buildings are generally old and in a state of disrepair.
tardiness are commonplace. Teacher salaries are considerably lower than those found in
most suburban areas, while the student dropout rate is significantly higher.
Despite this dismal portrayal, there is hope for urban public education, but that hope is
grounded in communication among the parties who play a role in the educational process.
In order for progress to be made, all parties must at least understand how schools function
in urban settings, and that cannot be achieved without providing context. The perspective
afforded by critical pedagogy and my response to it will reflect the complexity of this issue.
27
Critical pedagogy refers to a body of literature written by scholars (whom we will refer
to as "critical theorists") which deals primarily with social relationships in schools and the
way they reflect the larger social context. As do researchers in other academic fields of
inquiry, critical theorists in education struggle with the use of language. Often the
research. Their effort to communicate the essence of their message is often perceived by
Teachers who are marginally interested soon become frustrated and disenchanted.
Overwhelmed by what they see as a pomposity of verbiage, they often conclude that
ivory-tower eggheads have concocted yet another way to establish intellectual superiority
over their practitioner vassals. In doing so, teachers deny themselves the benefit of some
At the basis of many theoretical discussions about education lies one fundamental
question, one which has provoked countless arguments and one which we will now
examine: how do schools function? According to Giroux (1988), there are three traditions
in educational theory which help to illustrate the role of schools in socializing students and
which help reveal the meaning and structure of the hidden curriculum (the implicitly taught
messages which really lie beneath the veneer of the explicit educational curriculum,
critical view, often associated with the neo-Marxist analysis of educational theory and
practice" (p. 23). What later becomes apparent is that these are arranged in an ascending
schooling is a good place to start. "Relying primarily upon a positivist sociological model,
this approach has highlighted how schools socialize students to accept unquestionably a set
of beliefs, rules and dispositions as fundamental to the functioning of the larger society"
The term "positivist" is problematic for it relies on the idea "that there are incontestable
neutral facts on which all rational people agree" (Neuman, 1991, p. 60). Incontestable
neutral facts are what the dominant ideology, that body of ideas which reflects the needs of
the ruling class (Giroux's "larger society"), embraces as historically, politically and morally
supportive of its stance. The "rational people" are those in power or those who have been
convinced by the ideology of those in power that students should be inculcated into the
justified attitudes ("dispositions") and by doing all of this with unswerving certainty
right wing conservatives and the not-so-obvious categories of parents, teachers and civic
leaders.
29
4. TheMythofNeufralifr
Perhaps the most common example of an incontestable neutral fact which was taught as
such in American schools for many years was that Christopher Columbus discovered
America and that he was a great hero. By now it is obvious that he was neither the first
European to land here, nor the hero he was made out to be in light of the inhumane way he
treated the natives upon his arrival. In reality the "discovery" of Columbus marked an early
instance of the decimation of Native Americans, but prior to the development of voice
among Native Americans, the facts were, at best, unconsciously ignored and, at worst,
deliberately distorted.
Columbus does not stand alone in being typecast. From a different perspective, Martin
Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, Helen Keller and Malcolm X are examples of radicals
whose images have been tailored for school use. In outlining the way schools handle
radical personalities and dangerous ideas, Kozol (1975) describes a sequence of steps
which includes neutralizing their passion, distancing them through implausible praise and
information, he fails to look beyond the schools to the carrier of the information,
something that Apple (1988) does in explaining the role of the publishing industry. While
acknowledging the scholarly and humanistic purposes of publishers, Apple plainly names
their prime function, and that is selling textbooks to make a living. One of my functions as
English Department Chair is ordering texts, and in my discussions with book salespeople, I
have learned that eveiy major publishing firm caters to the tastes of Texas and California,
30
whose massive statewide orders give them the clout to dictate content. It is evident that the
Nowhere is this conscious effort to socialize students into the mainstream thinking of
the larger, dominant society more apparent than in the kinds of knowledge presented and
the ways in which that knowledge is presented in different school settings. In the urban
most vulnerable. The result is a situation in which students have no control. This is a form
designed to perpetuate a stratified society; the working class continues to provide the labor
5. Reproduction
The reproductive role of schooling became the dominant theme of critical pedagogy in
the early and mid seventies. Critical theorists acknowledge that reproduction theory, which
is concerned with how class position is transmitted through societal institutions such as
schools, owes its greatest debt to Karl Marx who saw the capitalist process of production as
manufacturing much more than commodities and surplus value. Insuring perpetuity, it is
the capitalist relationship itself which is reproduced Bernstein (1975) and Bourdieu and
Passeron (1977) argued that schools methodically preserve class boundaries by allocating
space, delineating time, choosing curricular knowledge, and valuing dominant forms of
Gintis attempted to expose the hidden curriculum of social control in education. They
31
argued that schools reproduce the social relationships fundamental to the maintenance of
capitalist profits and the capital division of labor. In comparing working class and affluent
schools, they found that blacks were consolidated in educational settings where
authoritarian management and little hope of upward mobility reflected the situation in
inferior job situations. Rule following and close attention to the specifications of others
were clearly emphasized in working class schools in contrast to affluent schools which
were comparatively open and active employing a value system based on internal rather than
external control.
This preparation for the workplace is the beginning of a dehumanizing process for
those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder and a superhumanizing process for those
at the top; what is sad is that people at both ends of the spectrum become inhuman. Those
in the middle try desperately not to fall to the bottom while struggling to get to the top.
The school system, Bowles and Gintis also argue, contains basic contradictions and is not
monolithic; I am an example of such-a working class child who did not fall into the
For those who are not exceptions, the picture is bleak. As Bowles and Gintis argue,
become the main priorities in working class schools. It is not only the students who suffer.
For teachers this translates into something that was never bargained for—the adoption of a
maintain absolute control, teachers often must become authoritarian automatons. Many
students are conditioned by this process and come to expect it as the status quo.
32
When the student teacher arrives for his or her internship in an urban setting with new
methodologies and visionary ideas, he or she is often met with resistance by both the
students and the cooperating teacher. Within a fourteen week period, it is difficult to
establish a working rapport with both supervisor and students. Adopting a survival
mentality then becomes a tempting option for the student teacher, one which can be easily
rationalized by comparison with those who already have played their part in the
reproductive process. The tension created by the struggle to fight the current or give in to
preparation is inadequate.
6. Resistance
The late seventies saw critical theorists focusing on the issue of students' resistance to
dominant forces. Perhaps the most prominent example is an important study by Paul Willis
in England. In I .earning to Labor. Willis (1977) identified the "lads” who create their own
norms and styles in resisting those the school offers, particularly those involving mental
labor. They criticize and feel superior to the "ear’oles" who sit and listen and imbibe the
school's attitude towards the value of learning. Willis suggests that the "lads" cling to the
working class notion that manual labor, a "masculine" thing, is superior to mental labor, a
"feminine" thing. They consciously choose to join their predecessors in the shops and in
Even among those who escape the reproduction pattern, the working class ethos and its
(1982) spoke of the difficulty he felt as the educated son of uneducated immigrants from
33
Mexico. His words bear a striking resemblance to the sexist connotation in the Willis study
when he speaks of his separation from "los braceros" (men who work with their arms) and
At Lawrence High School I have observed this male notion of equating the desire to
learn with effeminacy. I have seen the merciless teasing of boys who participate in
discussion. I have seen some of those boys cave in to peer pressure, become teasers
themselves and worse—deliberately get low grades to fit in with "the gang."
I have also seen student teachers caught in the middle of this struggle, many who blame
themselves for failing to reach working class students. Student teachers often do not
understand what the concept of machismo encompasses. They do not know that even if
they may have actually affected those students, those veiy students cannot break the
unwritten code and acknowledge that. As a result many student teachers become
depressed and question whether or not they will ever become effective communicators.
Perhaps it is what students are expected to learn that at least partially contributes to
their behavior. Apple (1979) sees the school curriculum as an ideological barrier to a more
just world and accounts for the qualitatively different types of educational knowledge
production. Accumulation is the process by which schools produce a work force which is
already programmed to satisfy the social and class conditions of the workplace.
Legitimation is the means by which schools validate the fairness of the current hierarchical
34
economic and social system. Production is the technically useful knowledge passed on to
This economic function overlaps with one of three "spheres" that Apple and Lois Weiss
(1983) conceptualize, the others being the cultural and the political. Within these spheres
can be found the elements or dynamics of class, race and gender. No one sphere can
An example these authors give strikes close to a burgeoning problem at Lawrence High
School. They speak of the rejection of education by urban students of color and the sense
of pride that many minority high school girls possess in their ability to bear children. Such
situations are the results of students' struggles to live in today's culture while still being
One of Lawrence High School's less admirable statistics is that it currently ranks highest
in the state in the percentage of unwed mothers. The accompanying chart (Figure 4) lists
the cities which contained the six highest teen pregnancy rates in the state in 1990.
Although I cannot fully account for the reasons, I can provide a personal glimpse
through the eyes of three young, pregnant women who were in my classes and who shared
their thoughts with me. Two were Dominican, the other, Puerto Rican. All three came
from highly religious homes which were patriarchal in nature. Forced to maintain an
extremely strict lifestyle while their brothers were allowed to do as they wished, they opted
r ^
Teen Pregnancy
The Six Highest From the 30 Largest Cities in Massachusetts
1990 Statistics
Teen Mothers
In June 1992:
* 20 of these students graduated. They played sports,
earned academic honors and were nominated for
community awards.
* 87 teens continued in the program - 47 pregnant and 40
as parents.
* 51 babies were bom during the school year.
* 16 students dropped out of school; 10 more transferred
to other programs.
* 18 students were in grades 6, 7, or 8; 19 were in grade 9,
17 in grade 10, 24 in grade 11.
Teen Pregnancy
Figure 4
36
for what they perceived as the only way to get out of the house immediately-pregnancy.
Subsidized housing and home tutoring served as catalysts in their decision making process,
but independence (at least their version of it) was the primary reason for their conscious
impregnation. This example reflects the importance of considering class, race and gender
It is easy for student teachers to fall into the trap of prejudging students based on fear
or ignorance of class, race or gender issues. Trying to be supportive of students who often
upbringing may clearly have prepared him or her to see this occurrence as a shameful act
While trying to guard against their own possible discriminatory bias, student teachers
must also be wary of the attitudes of their cooperating teachers who may accept the
situation humanely or rail against it as an act of sexual irresponsibility. Not knowing what
is deemed as morally acceptable in a particular urban environment can create a great deal
of tension and make the student teaching experience uncomfortable and awkward. At the
same time awareness of these issues and how they are viewed by various cultures would
allow student teachers to make informed decisions rather than judgments based on
In a comparative study on social class and school knowledge, Anyon (1981) noted
class conflict in the struggle to impose the knowledge of powerful groups on the working
class and in student resistance to this class-based curriculum. It is the location of the school
37
and the nature of its population that often determines which roles students will eventually
fill. The term "cultural capital" (Bourdieu, 1977, coined this phrase), which refers to the
ability and know-how to manage concepts and symbols in the line of self interest, is
something that is imparted to students in schools which serve an affluent clientele but is not
imparted to students in urban schools and other schools serving the working class.
although true some of the time, is too sweeping in its generalization. Regardless of
curriculum requirements and regardless of the limitation of textbooks, the teacher facilitates
the discussion and decides what kind of cultural capital will be passed on. The students
decide how much and how long they will resist the efforts of the teacher.
The factor which determines how much and what kind of cultural capital will be passed
on is the teacher's ability to shape the lesson in a meaningful and understandable context
resistance of students is strong enough to overcome the determination of the teacher, the
kind and quality of cultural capital passed on will be severely compromised. Continuous
student resistance from year to year can have a cumulative effect on the teacher's
The process of making the jump from busy work to critical thinking can take weeks or
even months to accomplish. Student teachers are not afforded the luxury of a full school
year to create a rapport, establish behavioral and academic expectations, and follow
through. If the process is difficult for the teacher, than how much more frustrating is it for
the student teacher who must accomplish his or her objectives within fourteen weeks? The
38
amount of impact -what many call "making a difference in someone's life"- is an issue of
Liston (1988) notes Anyon's concept of the selective tradition in elementary school
experience and curriculum along lines of class. He considers the reinforcement of this
concept in works by Taxel (1981) who found race and gender selectivity in children's
literature and Fitzgerald (1979) who examined the historical practice of inclusionary and
affluent schools stresses active use of concepts and ideas by students, as opposed to the
curriculum in working class schools which emphasizes mechanics and rote behaviors, the
unequal division of labor in U.S. society where those in power will plan and those who
Nothing I have read crystallizes this condition more artfully than the "banking concept,"
a metaphor created by Paulo Freire. With the growing emphasis by the state of
standardized tests, the banking concept will indeed be employed to make certain that
students learn knowledge which the state deems fundamentally necessary. Because of
language acquisition problems resulting in low reading levels, students at urban high
schools such as Lawrence High School will find themselves in classes where passing the
and what he sees as its narrative character (the teacher narrates; the student listens), a
39
process whose very nature causes the content of a lesson to become lifeless and petrified.
Students are seen as receptacles to be filled by the teacher. In this one-way system of
becomes an act of depositing. In the process, Freire notes, it is the students themselves
without significant side benefits. Neat rows of desks occupied by children who are either
listening intently or falling asleep create a classroom management strategy that rarely fails.
The banking concept also helps to prevent teachers from taking risks. Playing it safe avoids
embarrassment.
Certainly these side effects, although not initially, can eventually become attractive to
student teachers who place classroom management at the top of their anxiety list and who
would clearly like to avoid being embarrassed. If the cooperating teacher is an advocate
and practitioner of the banking concept, student teachers who are having difficulty with
control or who are not sufficiently knowledgeable in their content areas will inevitably
follow suit. In the same situation student teachers who are firmly opposed to the banking
concept throughout their practicum may find themselves at odds with their cooperating
teacher. The compromise between pleasing one's evaluator and maintaining one's integrity
While the early and mid-70's were dominated by the reproductive theme and the late
70's through the mid-eighties focused on student resistance to domination, the late 80's and
40
early 90's found a broadening of the critical pedagogy umbrella to include critical theorists
who focused on the ways classrooms reflected social context in its widest sense. Critiques
by feminists and people of color expanded the focus of critical pedagogy and called into
question early theorists who, for the most part, were grounded in a neo-Marxist framework
entrenched critical theorists in terms of gender, race and class. Within the feminist critique
Brooks & Kelly (1992) find strains of elitism in the works of Freire and Shor and an
absence of gender concerns. Brodkeys notion of the "Academy" (1987) similarly points a
finger at a more general inner circle of influential intellectuals who oversee acceptance in
their academic communities. The examination of dominant forms of knowledge shed new
light on social relations in schooling, and the work of Michael Foucalt (1972) found new
relevance.
Because student teachers arrive fresh from education courses which reflect current
trends, particularly those that demand the questioning of dominant forms of knowledge,
they are more likely to criticize accepted authoritative sources-a discursive practice that
could cause friction with their cooperating teachers and sometimes their students. Foucalt
defined a discursive practice as "a body of anonymous, historical rules, always determined
in the time and space that have defined a given period, and for a given social, economic,
117) It is rather ironic that this definition is in itself a discursive practice about the
construct of clear writing. Put simply concepts can be understood as much by what they
41
are not as bv what they are. It is essential to realize that discursive practice structures a
discourse, but it is equally essential that student teachers understand the importance of
criticizing an accepted body of knowledge intellectually and not simply firing broadsides at
Chenyholmes (1992) stresses the notion that in order to figure out where knowledge
and power fit in social studies education, it is necessary to investigate its discursive practice.
If a student teacher were discussing the concept of slavery in colonial America, it would be
as important to examine what slavery wasn't as to examine what it was. Concepts are
which a body of knowledge is produced. It is thus that later critical pedagogy itself
becomes a discursive practice lending greater insight to earlier critical theory. As McLaren
coherent subjects with fixed identities but through discursive practices that produce subject
This notion of truth as relative to historical and spatial considerations underlines the
Student teachers need to understand not only the importance of questioning dominant
forms of knowledge as a useful discursive practice but the importance of questioning based
on sound preparation and serious reflection so that concepts and issues are examined fairly
and responsibly.
42
an emancipatory process which liberates students and gives them the chance to escape the
drudgery of the working class and to move into areas of power. Under this philosophy, the
role of educators is to develop within students the need and the skills to resist, to fight back,
to question what it is they learn and why they learn it so that they do not become helpless
This notion of resistance is critical. In Freire's view (1970), domination is much more
pervasive than what we see in the police, the army and the courts. When technology is
teamed with power and ideology, the inevitable result is the production of knowledge and
social relationships which subtly silence people. The most frightening aspect of this logic is
that this information is internalized by the oppressed who literally end up participating in
Freire's notion of the dialogic process offers a model of egalitarianism and mobility. As
anti-dialogue is seen as oppressive. Ira Shor (1987) offers acute insight into Freire's active
transcendence of domination, the means by which an egalitarian relationship can not only
exist but become a conscious-raising experience in terms of the dialogic process. He notes
that in Freire's system, social practice is the content studied, and dialogue is the form of
society. The form (the dialogue) and the content of the class (the non-egalitarian social
43
DIALOGUE
A with B = communication
«r‘ ■'»
intercommunication
ANTI-DIALOGUE
over
B = communique
Freire's Model of Dialogue. Along with Anti-Dialogue this Model Reflects the Matrix
of Human Emotions Engendered by Each Form of Communication.
Figure 5
44
relationship in the class) dialectically support each other in the same way as the practice of
This dialectically constructed model represents the possibility for liberation within the
can recognize and transcend subtle modes of control centered around knowledge
engendered by those in power. It has much in common with Freire's model of dialogue
and anti-dialogue, for counter-hegemony too is a transforming process which can take
place only once the dominant culture is critically understood. It is not nihilistic but calls for
a rearticulation of ideological elements. Giroux (1988) argues that when Gramsci contends
that every teacher is a pupil and every pupil a teacher, he is not forgoing the necessity of
through this type of pedagogy that educators might come to understand social and cultural
reproduction within the nature of student resistance and use that insight to transform
misguided cultural resistance into political awareness and social action. It is through this
When studying the data produced by my interviews with student teachers, I will attempt
to see if there are connections between this information and emancipatory theory. The
provided, 1 have constructed an answer to the question I earlier posed involving the
function of education. Encapsulating the main tenets of critical pedagogy, I believe the
dialogic process. This process not only makes them aware of how the economic, cultural
and political spheres and the dynamics of class, race and gender affect their lives but
egalitarian society.
The preceding paragraph illustrates the need for caution and patience in dealing with
sensitive issues, and it is the use of caution and patience which I recommend to student
teachers who would attempt to carry out the function of urban education as seen through
critical pedagogy. Consider the following reduced list of ten "real" classroom issues at
9) class size ranges from 15 to 43; 600 students enrolled in E.S.L. classes.
10) department budgets slashed by 50% each year for the past five years.
communication when thirty percent of the student body is enrolled in bilingual courses and
ninety percent comes from homes where the dominant language is not English. It is
difficult to foster parent involvement when half the students live in one-parent homes and
One of the goals of this study is to see how student teachers experience this reality and
to examine the tensions and complications which result when they try to work with it. As a
veteran educator, my advice to student teachers is to follow the "old" way initially, but I am
also aware of human nature and that part of us which automatically resists advice.
Following the "old" way means establishing authority and setting clear behavioral and
The urban classroom is often the only source of continuity in students' lives. In
establishing a safe place where expectations are clear, student teachers can provide students
with an opportunity to express themselves without fear of being ridiculed. It is at this point
that the empowering process can begin. It is at this juncture where Freire's concept of
In tiying to answer the question of what it is like to student teach in an urban high
school today, I tried to gain some historical perspective by reflecting on the metamorphosis
Lawrence High School has undergone during my twenty-four year tenure in terms of social
students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds and because of the sense of fair play
which all parties tried to utilize, I have seen cultural differences identified and appreciated
I have seen the transition from attempts to assimilate Hispanics into the Anglo culture
during the 70's and early 80's (when an ethnic minority group acquires the behavior
patterns, language and values of the dominant group) to attempts to acculturate all races
and ethnicities in the late 80's and early 90's (when two different ethnic groups are
exchanging cultural elements). I have seen and participated in the long and arduous
process of promoting racial and ethnic harmony not only within the school but in the
community as well.
By taking advantage of what the school has to offer, students can become empowered
providing they and their teachers do not see the situation as impossible. Fine (1989) cites
correlational evidence which suggests that teachers who feel disempowered generally
believe that disadvantaged students cant be helped. Teachers who feel empowered,
however, generally believe they can make a significant difference in the lives of their
students.
participate in sports and other extracurricular activities, and develop within students a sense
statistics involving dropout rates, pregnancy rates, failure rates and absenteeism. I continue
to try to understand how we can gain so much in some areas and lose so much in others,
perhaps a necessary dialectic which will bring about further progress. In retrospect I see a
learning process, my desire as a student was to treat others with respect and fairness and to
be treated in kind. Within the learning process, my desire as a teacher is to treat others
with respect and fairness and to be treated in kind. Within the learning process, my desire
as a teacher educator will be to treat others with respect and fairness and to be treated in
kind.
I have heard politicians and critics say that "throwing more money at education" wont
solve the problems. My answer is not fit for print. It is ironic that the corporate world
recognizes the necessity of paying its professionals competitive salaries and that it
recognizes the value of research and development. Giroux and McClaren (1989) have
identified some of the factors which have contributed to the deskilling and
disempowerment of teachers. Within the Republican agenda (1980-92) these included the
plans for teacher evaluation, standardized curricula to bring all students into line, and
to argue for increased funding for salaries and resources to help meet the myriad of social,
cultural, economic, and political problems teachers encounter. And while all school
49
systems are certainly in need of help, it is the urban school system with the highest
concentration of minorities, the widest spectrum of human abilities and the lowest per-pupil
In examining the experience of student teachers who do not have the advantage (or
of educating children in an urban high school, I will attempt to understand their philosophy,
a philosophy shaped by their family upbringing, the influences of their heredity and
environment and their own education. The way they make meaning of their experience
and the philosophy they develop as a result of that understanding may provide me with
additional insight in understanding the data which this study will produce.
CHAPTER m
school, I had to choose what I considered to be the most effective methodology for this
purpose. An inappropriate selection could have spelled disaster or at best provided results
which were inadequate or off target. After considerable reflection I chose qualitative
research.
by theorists such as Schutz (1967), Lincoln and Guba (1985), Bertaux (1981), and James
particular I will discuss the specific use of in-dcpth phenomenological interviewing, a type
through. In asking the question of what can be done with such stories, Bertaux (1981)
examines what he considers a key theoretical issue which runs through studies of this
nature, "the connection between social dynamics and historical change: what is the
50
51
Ferrarotti (1968) addresses this question by underscoring the fact that although the
biographical method (based on accounts from the person being studied) addresses itself to
the individual, it is clearly not the individual who is the sociological atom but its product.
He sees the true elementary social unit as the primary group, a complex system which
actually constitutes the simplest object under sociological observation. For Ferrarotti,
taking the passage from group biography (the most simple) to individual biography (the
most complex) while considering all the problems implicit within the integration of the two
That journey requires much more than mere transmission of words. Bertaux (1981)
talks about the intellectual obligation of providing in-depth descriptions of patterns of social
elements of knowledge about sociohistorical processes will find their way into living
cultures" (p. 44) and become common knowledge. In my study I will identifiy and
relate to student teaching in urban high schools. Kohli (1978) sees the expectations of the
biographical method as threefold: "to get access to social life (a) as comprehensively as
possible, (b) 'from within,' i.e., in its meaning and subjective aspects, and (c) in its historical
dimension” (p. 63). Thomas and Znaniecki (1921) emphasize that by "representing
individual life histories, the biographical method is meant to give access to the reality of life
of social aggregrates (strata, classes, cultures, etc.)" (p. 63). Through the use of the in-
depth interviewing process, I will develop a profile of one of my participants which will
52
The phenomenological approach sees the relationship between observer and participant
as intertwined, one which will produce multiple truths based on the purposes of the
investigator and the focus of the investigation. This approach is reflected in the notion of
cooperative inquiry.
C. Cooperative Inquiry
In calling cooperative inquiry a new paradigm in research. Reason (1988) noted three
major changes or shifts in thought. As I explain them, I will show how they fit my study.
The first is participatory or holistic knowing based on the premise that wholeness in
understanding requires participation. The whole is more than the sum of its parts; each
part must partake in it. In my study it will be clear that phenomenological interviewing is
not a one-way process. The participant (the student teacher) responds to the interviewer
(myself) who then reacts to what the participant has offered It is a mutual building
process that requires interaction between two contributors. The product is the result of the
The second is a shift from objective consciousness to critical subjectivity. This allows
us to exercise our naive inquiry, an important part of our humanity, and moves us further
away from the objective consciousness of the scientific method. In my study I believe that
naive inquiry means exercising normal human curiosity without consciously weighing the
are put in place, the outcome is more the result of a plan than a natural outgrowth of a
53
conversation which is nurtured by its own dialogue. Allowed to pursue the participant's
story freely, the interviewer in conjunction with the participant literally create what the
The third shift is that knowledge is formed in and for action rather than in and for
reflection. In this sense knowledge that is grounded, practical and intuitive is more useful
manner which will allow us to share the experience of student teachers in urban high
schools and provide knowledge which may be used to improve the preparation of student
D. Interviewing as Methodology
involvement in working with student teachers has a long history, my interest in studying
their experience through the interviewing process was sparked by a course I took with
Through this course and through a pilot project I later conducted for my comprehensive
involved in making contact with them, and the difficulty of setting up interviews at times
which were accommodating to them. In transcribing the data, I appreciated what the term
"labor intensive" means. With transcripts in hand, I then faced the challenge of working
with the material and deciding how best to share what I had learned.
54
I chose this method for my study because I find one-on-one dialogue the most effective
through their own spoken words is a magical process, but this understanding does not
appear out of thin air. In fact it is a dialectical concept -freedom through structure-which
allows the interviewer a way of channeling his participants' responses while consciously
attempting to affect them as little as possible. I can think of no other method of inquiry
E. Observations on Observations
student teachers in the classroom and base my study on those observations. As English
Regardless of my intention, my presence in the room has an effect on the participants and
the dynamics of the class, thereby casting doubt on the validity of all that I record. A video
re-creation of the class. Although a more impartial way to record data, it still does not
offer the observer the same advantage as the interview—being an active participant in the
The in-depth interviewing process that I used consists of three ninety-minute interviews,
each with a specific function. The first interview provides the listener with a background
of the participants' experience thereby establishing the context for further study. The
second interview hinges on the participants' reconstruction of the experience being focused
55
on within the context in which it occurs. The final interview asks the participants to
consider the meaning their experience holds for them. (Seidman, 1991) Since all
participants are student teachers, the experience discussed is the practicum each completed
teacher preparation courses and the pre-practicum. The third interview focuses on
The easier the access, the more complicated the interview (Seidman, 1991) is advice
which was well taken. If access is gained through a position of power such as supervisor or
cooperating teacher, or a position of familiarity such as friend or relative, the results will
most likely be affected by the relationship. I accessed student teachers through three
sources.
As English Department Chair at Lawrence High School and unofficial contact person
for student teacher placements, I am acquainted with teacher preparation program directors
from several colleges and universities. As formal gatekeepers, they provided me with
names of student teachers who were in the process of or who had recently completed their
practicum at an urban high school. The second source is the site where I work; it was an
appropriate location from which to access student teachers who chose to do their practicum
56
at Lawrence High School. The third source was networking through recommendations
Contact was usually made in person, but when the distance was far, contact was made
by telephone. Initial meetings were set up at which time I explained the purpose and nature
of the interviews. I also asked potential participants to read and sign the informed consent
document after discussing its intent fully. Interviews took place at sites which were most
convenient for the participants provided the locations offered privacy and adequate
comfort.
H. Participants
Fifteen student teachers were interviewed three times each at ninety minutes per
interview. The student teachers selected had to have finished at least ten weeks of their
gather as much information as possible on the urban student teaching experience, I did not
limit the selection of my participants on the basis of gender, class, race, age or content area
taught. These contextual specifics, however, have been carefully scrutinized and detailed
in the data analysis. I did not attempt to choose a representative sample. Although
they are far less important in this type of study where the depth of the interview and the
42).
57
I and my wife, Gail, transcribed the interviews verbatim which produced more than
1,800 pages of single-spaced dialogue. I then replaced the names of participants, persons,
schools, school districts, and cities with pseudonyms. I printed the data onto triple-copy
paper, paginated by code, hole-punched the pages and placed them in individual binders
alphabetically.
I read the data carefully, taking notes as I proceeded. I employed two strategies in
working with the data: categorizing and contextualizing strategies. Categorizing strategy
passages which appeared interesting or insightful with respect to the purpose of this study
and wrote brief notes in the margins to specify the nature of the passage.
After reading and marking passages in all fifteen interviews, I returned to the data and,
using mutlicolored dots and stars, ascribed selected passages a label based on a tentative
category (e.g., attitude towards tracking). I also developed a coding system which helped
As described in my analysis of critical pedagogy, context implies not only the spatial
importance of how political, cultural and economic factors affect the participant but the
temporal importance of how historical factors play a significant role. As in the previous
strategy, I read and then highlighted and labeled passages which revealed a particular
When I finished marking and labeling all pertinent passages, I cut out individual
passages and filed them in the following manner. Forty large manila envelopes were
separated into eight general categories (race, gender, critical pedagogy, language,
business envelopes bearing the name of the participant and the label delineating the
category and environmental period were placed in the manila envelopes (each manila
envelope therefore contained fifteen white envelopes, one for each participant). Individual
J, .Themes
By searching for patterns and connections among the excerpts within the categories and
Themes can be recognized in several ways. Often a single word or phrase in an excerpt is
powerful enough to attract attention. Sometimes it is the sheer number of times the same
reaction or feeling is mentioned which catches our eye. Sometimes it is an excerpt which is
not consistent with other things the participant has to say which narrows our focus. In
recognizing and analyzing thematic links between passages, I have provided the reader with
K- Profile
which have a beginning, middle and end and some sense of conflict and resolution
(Seidman, 1991). One important way in which humans makes sense of themselves and
59
their social world is through the telling of stories (Mishler, 1986). Presenting a story in
narrative form further enriches the reader's understanding of the experience of student
teachers in urban high schools gained through the in-depth interviewing process.
I developed a profile of one of the participants for the purpose of presenting a unified
depiction of how she makes meaning of her current experience in light of her individual
background. The profile is presented in first person in the words of the participant. To
capture the flow of the participant's consciousness, the words are presented in the
approximate order in which they were spoken. As a condition of the construction of the
profile, this sequencing process reflects the thinking processes of the participant. Minor
L. Establishing Trustworthiness
1. Triangulation
and member checking. Denzin (1978) identified four different modes of triangulation
including the use of multiple and different sources, methods, investigators and theories.
The mode which was appropriate for my study was triangulation of sources. This implies
validating evidence through multiple copies of one type of source, in this case, my
interview participants. Diesing (1972) identified two forms of a similar mode called
contextual validation. One form implies that a piece of evidence can be assessed by
comparing it with other kinds of evidence on the same point. The second form calls for an
evaluation of the source of evidence via the collection of different kinds of evidence about
that source.
60
2. PeerDefrrjefiag
Peer debriefing (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) is another means which helped validate my
study. The peer debriefer is an individual not connected directly with the study who meets
with the researcher intermittently during the period of data analysis. The peer debriefer
may serve as a sounding board, a comforter or a challenger of ideas. The peer debriefer
may see examples of researcher bias and point those out or make suggestions for alternate
ways to view the material and interpret the data. It is wise to be wary of relying too heavily
on the peer debriefer; used thoughtfully, however, the peer debriefer can become an
invaluable resource. Among other things I asked my peer debriefer to comment on the
themes and categories I have identified and the appropriateness of passages I have selected
to support them. I also asked my peer debriefer to listen to specific passages from the
interviews and comment on the tonality and content in trying to identify the public versus
3. Member Checking
Member checking (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was also used to clarify unclear or vague
statements or allusions made by the participants. The researcher needs to keep open lines
of communication with participants long after the interviews are completed. Checking with
M. Conclusion
I share my thoughts about my research in the final chapter of this dissertation. I begin
through XI. I follow with a philosophical reflection of the in-depth interviewing process. I
then tie the results I achieved to the literature base which I cited in informing various
student teachers for urban high schools. Implications for future research are also discussed
in this final chapter. My hope is that this dissertation will yield valuable insight into the
Issues of race are of paramount importance in the urban high school. In twenty-five of
the nation's largest cities, students of color make up more than half of the public school
population (Banks, 1991). In the six urban high schools in which my participants did their
student teaching, students of color accounted for thirty-six to eighty-seven percent of the
population at Leighton High School and a significant percentage of the student population
at Sussex High School and Halifax High School. Asian Americans comprised a significant
percentage of the student population at Lane High School and Lane Vocational High
School, and African Americans comprised the majority of the student population at
Despite these numbers the percentage of faculty members who were white at every
location was overwhelming as was the percentage of faculty members who could not speak
Spanish or other foreign languages fluently. While racial problems existed in all six
settings, only Dickson High School escaped the additional problems caused by the
A. The White Student Teacher as Cue Ball: A Metaphor Illustrating Racial Interaction
in the Urban Practicum
A cloud of smoke suspended itself over the expanse of green felt. Dust particles floated
aimlessly in the tepid light cast by the low-hung tiffany lamp. The player was poised over
the table eyeing the multi colored billiard balls contained within the rigid wooden rack.
When the rack was lifted, the balls remained rooted in the same triangular formation—
62
63
tight, implacable, resistant. The cue ball, curious by its lactic color, looked faceless; it had
neither stripe nor number-nothing visible to connect it to the group of balls at the other
end of the table except its round shape. As the player slowly drew back the wooden shaft,
the onloookers watched and waited for the gleaming white ball to explode into the pack
In this metaphor the cue ball represents the white student teacher; the billiard balls, the
diversified students in the urban practicum; the player, the university education program;
the rack, the cooperating practitioner; the table, the urban classroom; the pockets, the
educational directions in which students are propelled. While this metaphor is limited by
the inanimate state of some of the objects, it does encompass the situation in which many
I did not include race, gender, class, age or content area taught as criteria for selecting
my participants. My sample of fifteen student teachers was comprised of eleven males and
four females. They were primarily from middle class backgrounds, ranged in age from
twenty-three to twenty-nine years old and taught in the areas of English, Science and Social
Studies. All fifteen were white. This latter statistic must be noted as a limitation in terms
of applying the results of this study to all student teachers. On a racially homogeneous
basis, however, it also provided me with an opportunity to learn about what happens when
white student teachers are placed in urban high schools servicing primarily students of
intensity and length. Previous exposure to people of color played a significant role in
In order to provide contextual understanding for the excerpts quoted throughout this
study, I have provided a quick reference chart (Figure 6) and the following brief snapshots
of my participants and of their practicum sites. Pseudonyms are used in place of all names
and locations:
Terry Anson, a twenty-four year old white female from an upper middle class
background, student taught in the Science Department at Leighton High School.
Through friendships made in high school sports programs, she had significant exposure
to people of color. A former RA in graduate school, she was a firm advocate of gender
equality. Positive about most of her student teaching experience, she acknowledged a
weakness in classroom management.
Jennifer Benares, a twenty-seven year old white female from an upper class
background, student taught in the English Department at Sussex High School.
Attending an exclusive undergraduate college, she had very little exposure to people of
color. Compassionate about the plight of inner city students, she was a firm advocate
of racial equality. Jennifer was a giver. She spent endless hours preparing and
correcting and did her best to get students to believe in themselves. Very positive about
her student teaching experience, she acknowledged a weakness in classroom
management.
Julie Boswick, a twenty-nine year old white female from a lower middle class
background, student taught in the Social Studies Department at Leighton High school.
Easily the most animated participant in my study, Julie had come through the
educational system the hard way. Not a model student in secondary school, she had a
child out of wedlock and bounced back and forth between work and college before
finally deciding on a teaching career. She had limited exposure to people of color
through high school. During her interviews Julie shot straight from the hip and was
very opinionated about classism, racism and sexism.
John Bulinski, a twenty-five year old white male from a middle class background,
student taught in the English Department at Lane Vocational. A very somber and
hard-working young man, John was heavily involved in journalistic endeavors and
enjoyed teaching writing. He attributed his successful practicum experience to the
careful guidance of an experienced cooperating teacher. With primarily parochial
schooling, John was deeply religious and a firm advocate of gay rights. He had
65
KEY: CLASS
LMC Lower Middle Class
MC Middle Class
UMC Upper Middle Class
UC Upper Class
Figure 6
66
significant exposure to people of color in undergraduate school but not prior to that.
He was very close to his parents and still lived with them.
Sal Cheblanc, a twenty-five year old white male from an upper middle class
background, student taught in the English Department of Leighton High School. A
son of divorced parents, a mother who was incredibly supportive and a father who
was brilliant but emotionally abusive, Sal was a firm advocate for students' rights.
Although he had limited exposure to people of color growing up, he was
compassionate and sympathetic to the plight of inner city students, particularly
Hispanics who were experiencing difficulties with the English language.
Bill Colletta, a twenty-three year old white male from a middle class background,
student taught in the English Department at Leighton High School. Athletic, aggressive
and blessed with a booming voice, Bill fancied himself a lady's man. He was raised in a
different part of the country and had had significant exposure to people of color
through high school. Having lost his best friend to cancer in their freshman year of
college, Bill had become somewhat cynical about life. He was, however, extremely
confident about his ability to reach inner city students.
Robert Greene, a twenty-six year old white male from an upper middle class
background, student taught in the English Department at Leighton High School. He
was die most excited about and the most appreciative of the student teaching experience
of all my participants. Originally planning to be an engineer, he had switched to English
when he became disillusioned with the regimentation in the sciences. Articulate and
intelligent, he looked older than his age and was painfully honest about his strengths and
shortcomings.
Peter Macelroy, a twenty-six year old white male from a middle class background,
student taught in the Social Studies Department at Leighton High School. As a youth
he was a self proclaimed "nerd" and had almost no exposure to people of color until he
attended college. Although he graduated from a university that was labeled as liberal
and although he did like rap music, he was fairly conservative in his views, particularly
those concerning tracking.
Timothy Meehy, a twenty-four year old white male from a lower middle class
background, student taught in the English Department at Leighton High School.
Young looking and fairly naive, he experienced control problems in his classes but was
very popular with his students. Prior to his practicum he had very little exposure to
people of color. During his practicum he made a special effort to attend sporting
events and extracurricular activities which endeared him to his students.
Trevor Moody, a twenty-nine year old white male from an upper middle class
background, student taught in the English Department at Dickson High School. A
spoiled son from an affluent family, Trevor had bounced around a good deal as a
67
professional rock and roll musician before deciding to become a teacher. Very likable
and gregarious, Trevor empathized with students who had no clear direction in their
lives.
Monica Pellante, a twenty-three year old white female from a middle class background,
student taught in the English Department at Leighton High School. Physically
diminutive and very young looking, she had some classroom management problems and
was conscious of her gender and her race in a primarily Hispanic school. She had
exposure to people of color throughout her schooling but only at a distance. Although
she had the fortitude to finish her practicum, she found the experience overwhelming
in terms of the academic load and the management responsibilities.
James Ramaska, a twenty-five year old white male from a middle class background,
student taught in the Social Studies Department at Leighton High School. A son of
educators and a physically gifted athlete, he attended a parochial high school and an
exclusive college. Through sports he had had a great deal of exposure to people of
color. A straight shooter he was low key, positive and self confident.
Chris Ristous, a twenty-eight year old white male from a working class background,
student taught in the English Department at Lane High School. A transplant from a
large urban city on the West Coast, he was the only participant I interviewed who was
street smart. As a youth he was pugilistic and athletic and did just enough academically
to get by. He managed to charm his way through most of his high school and college
classes but eventually realized that making the minimum grade was not enough.
Although his academic metamorphosis gave him direction, it did not subdue his charm.
He retained some of his roguishness and never forgot the lessons of survival he learned
on the street.
Raymond Strathmore, a twenty-four year old white male from a lower middle class
background, student taught in the English Department at Halifax High School.
Somewhat shy and small in stature, he had some difficulty working with his cooperating
teacher whom he perceived as didactic and robotic. His practicum experience left him
wiser but unsure of whether or not the urban high school was a suitable environment
for him.
Jack Wilson, a twenty-eight year old white male from a middle class background,
student taught in the Social Studies Department at Leighton High School. Jack was
articulate, serious and reflective. A son of divorced parents, he had a troubled
childhood. After high school he developed a disciplined work ethic and went to college
while also working full time. He had exposure to people of color as a successful
manager in a retail business. Extremely knowledgeable about educational theory, he
had a clear sense of direction and strong classroom management skills.
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Halifax High School's student population is approximately 1,800. White students make
up the majority of the student body with a rapidly increasing number of Hispanic
students approaching forty percent of the total. The school is located in the heart of
Halifax, a densely populated, working class city in the Northeast.
Lane High School's student population is approximately 2,500. White students make
up the majority of the student body with a rapidly increasing number of Asian
American students approaching forty-five percent of the total. The number of Hispanic
students has also increased noticeably during the past four years. The school is located
in the heart of Lane, a densely populated, working class city in the Northeast.
Uncertainty is one of three dominant themes which I identified as I studied the data in
the category of race. All of the participants in my study were white. All were uncertain of
how they were perceived by students of color. Many were uneasy about the legitimacy of
their ability or effectiveness or, in some cases, even their right to teach students of color.
Uncertainty of how to deal with students of color permeated almost every aspect of my
Barriers exist between races as a means of protection, but logic dictates that what is walled
in is walled out. Encroachment upon each other's turf caused feelings of alienation for
both student teachers and students. Throughout this chapter I will examine how these
Lastly I will also demonstrate that exclusivity is the dominant theme under the subtopic
of racist language. With particular reference to the word, "nigger," as both a term of
endearment and a racial epithet, I will make meaning of the reactions of some of the white
A myriad of thoughts invaded the minds of the student teachers whom I interviewed
when they walked into their urban classrooms, not the least of which was "Will I be
accepted?" What they believed as they began the practicum was predicated on their own
twelve years of schooling, their life experience and the later influence of their university
training. Fear and self doubt were two of the mechanisms which were activated in many of
them when they faced a racially diverse group of students. At Leighton High School Tim
I was intimidated by the population I was dealing with. I know my material very well,
but I need to leam to bring it across. How could I bring it across to a whole different
population I never dealt with before, and could I do that? In the beginning I had
trouble doing that I was too serious. I think kids like to have fun, and I don't think I
was being funny. I was teaching them as though I was teaching college kids.
Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all. How urban high school students who
were racially and culturally different would react to a white student teacher was a major
source of anxiety for Tim. The safest approach was not to take chances. As important as
70
humor in the classroom is, a potentially hostile audience can bring even a seasoned
comedian to tears. Tim's uncertainty initially caused him to take the serious route which
up and became more like himself. While desirable, however, an environment of open
dialogue can also prove to be a two-edged sword, especially when race is involved.
At Dickson High School Trevor Moody found himself in such a situation. When his
trepidation led to stereotypical, racial resistance, his defensiveness came into play: "I was
terrified to say anything at first, but when they started saying things, then I started saying
Well you know, we have stereotypes about your people too'-and that's a real scary thing."
Trevor being able to reduce his feelings of alienation and rationalize the situation: "These
kids arc thinking what the hell arc you doing here? TheyVe had a distrust of my type of
people generationally. And I think there is definitely something there. So, you have to be
The initial testing period, trying as it may be for the student teacher, is also trying for
some of the students. While the student teacher stands alone, the students are protected by
sheer numbers, and the advantage is clearly theirs. But the group is made up of
individuals, and on an individual basis some of them are uncomfortable with the resistance
they contributed to as part of the group. The following incident narrated by Trevor
displays the need for one student to explain the game in privacy:
On more than one occasion the kids referred to the "blue eyed devil" meaning the white
man, and those circumstances tended to make me laugh because ultimately they knew
71
that that wasn’t true, at least for me. But kids did it to challenge me sometimes. They
would look at me with a smile on their face, and I got less defensive as time went on.
The kid who said it this one time came after class, shook my hand and said, "You know
that I was only playing with you, right?” And I said, "Of course I did."
misbehaving and testing the moral conscience of a white student teacher by slinging racial
epithets and waiting for a reaction as was the case here. Trevor's quick answer, "Of course
I did," was meant to strengthen his relationship with the student, but it was also meant to
disguise the uncertainty and alienation that he and many of my participants in similar
environments felt. It is important to note that the "feeling out" process works two ways.
As evident in this case, some students of color are also uncertain about the way they should
treat a white student teacher. Feelings of alienation can develop as well when students try
For some students adjusting sometimes means using terminology which is unfamiliar to
the student teacher to evoke laughter from and cement camaraderie with fellow students.
Because new labels pop up like mushrooms overnight, student teachers, no matter how
worldly they may be, need to "chill" and be prepared for anything. When the following
description appeared out of nowhere, Trevor's sense of astonishment was evident: "I
thought I had heard all the white stereotypes made by black people, but I had never heard
that white people smell like *wet dogs’ and other things that I had never, ever heard." Some
Because every day presented new challenges and required a high degree of sensitivity,
many of the student teachers I interviewed became aware of the effects of racial
differences not only on themselves but on others who shared their cultural isolation,
72
particularly when the minority population made up the majority of the student body. At
Once in a while they make a few white boy comments. There is a white girl in one of
my classes, and they give her a hard time. A white kid has a really hard time at that
school fitting in, and it's very difficult because they're not into the culture.
Peter's remarks gave away his own uneasiness. Like the white girl he described, Peter
too was not ''into" the Hispanic culture. He may have felt that tolerating "white boy"
comments without reacting was necessary for his survival, but he was clearly unaware of
the pattern he was setting and the toll it could eventually take. His inability to protect his
white student from the "hard time" given to her by students of color also indicates his
uncertainty about which course of action to take and his sense of helplessness. The kind of
frustration this produces can lead to finger pointing. Because of their inability to adjust to
the newness of the situation and the discomfort of a strange environment, some of the
student teachers I interviewed tried to affix the blame elsewhere. In Tim Meehys case the
It wasn't a life-threatening intimidation; it was more like "What have I gotten into?" I've
discovered that Lane University doesn't necessarily teach you, help you to come into a
situation like this. I would go on record to say that they gear their program towards
middle class America, whether that be minority middle America, white middle America,
upper class middle America. That's what they're geared to.
Tim and others felt their educational programs inadequate in terms of preparing them
for an urban high school with a diverse student body. Tim's middle class background made
middle class students, but when he tried to apply what he learned in his graduate
D A Crescendo of Racial Interaction: How White Student Teachers Dealt With Students
of Color in the Urban Classroom
Within the classroom the range of student reactions to racial issues spans the distance
between indifference and violence. Julie Boswick, a social studies student teacher at
Leighton High School, proceeded gingerly along the balance beam of equality:
Juan Rojas is a great kid, I really like him a lot. He sees racism in everything. One day
he came in and said, "Miss Boswick, you got to see the new M & M man." I said,
"What, Juan, what?" And he said, "It's racism," and I said to everybody, "Okay, let's all
get settled real quickly. Juan is going to enlighten us with how the new M & M man is
racist." He said, "The new almond M & M resembles a white person as compared to
the little, small brown M & M." He said to notice how they made that M & M speak
just a little more eloquently than the brown M & M and how it was larger than the
brown M & M. I said, "It has an almond in it. Of course, it's going to be larger.
How much legitimacy there is to observations of racial bias must be carefully weighed
by the student teacher. Some, as indicated above, are probably frivolous, but others, as
indicated below, are probably legitimate. Interestingly enough this statement was made by
He was probably just being a wise egg too, but he said, "Miss Boswick, you know, I'm
going to boycott history class." And I said, "Why," and he said, "It's not my history.
It's not the history of my people," and I was insulted. I said, "Juan, I really think I try to
give a multicultural curriculum. Fm well aware of that, and I really strive hard to
include everyone's viewpoints, and I really take personal offense that you feel that it's
not. You know, this is required text. I have so many limitations that I can work with.
Fm sorry if you feel there is something that I could have done that I haven't. Take this
up with the school rather than sitting around saying "Oh, poor me—rm going to boycott
history,' Take it up with the administration. Tell them you want history of the
Dominican Republic as an elective in this school. They have to start responding to
student needs." Maybe that was not my place.
Although Juan never accused Julie of being racist, her immediate reaction to him was
presentation and of the limited resources she had to work with. Still she had the good
(
74
sense to suggest to Juan that he take some decisive action through legitimate channels
rather than simply complain. Wondering if it were "her place" to do so emphasizes her
uncertainty about the limits of her authority as a student teacher. Juan did not take offense
to her reaction, but there are times when students' observations of what they perceive as
racial bias cause them to retaliate. When construed as prejudicial rather than simply
authoritative, disciplinary measures taken by student teachers can provoke hostile reactions
One of the kids wasn't doing the work at all, and he was black, and I went up to him
and started talking to him, and he called me a racist. That made me uncomfortable for
a minute, and I said, "No, that's not the issue. The issue is you're not doing the work."
That's an uncomfortable situation, and he brought it up to my cooperating teacher when
she got back, and we talked about it, and she agreed with me. He wasn't doing the
work. That's why I talked to him.
The need to have the cooperating teacher affirm that the action wasn't racist is a telltale
sign of John's uncertainty. Despite having good intentions, some of my participants were
often not sure whether or not they had been biased when confronted by students who
harbored deep rooted anger. The situation can be perplexing as is evident in this incident
Today I was talking to a student in the hallway, and all he could say was, "It's racial
man, it’s racial. You're racist." And I'm not racist, and I told him I wasn't racist. I told
him he was using that as a way to cop out of his responsibility for how he acts. He
said, "You white people are all alike." Then he told me how well I treated the white
students in the classroom, and he included a black student in that description, so I
couldn't figure that one out.
The inclusion of a black student within the group that was alleged to be favored seems
to exonerate Monica from the charge of being racist, but it did not remove her uncertainty.
Perhaps a more important question is why she was singled out as a target for attack. Street
75
smart kids can be brutal with what they perceive is a namby pamby student teacher, and
they are savvy enough to know how to frighten a teacher without getting in trouble. The
testing theme may be interesting when analyzed and discussed on an intellectual plane, but
when confronted by it in the arena, a student teacher can be traumatized Sal Cheblanc, an
English student teacher at Leighton High School, luckily took this situation in stride:
He actually threatened me. It was my first or second day, but I think he was just testing
me. I didn't let it bother me, at least not in front of them. He said to me, "Why do you
want to become a teacher?" And I told him why I wanted to become a teacher, and he
said, "Teachers can get hurt you know. They can get elbowed in the head, they can get
a desk smashed over their head, they can get thrown out the window," and then the kid
next to him said, "Yeah, sometimes they can get killed." He was testing to see what my
reaction to him saying that would be. Whether this guy is afraid of every Latino student
on the planet? Is he a typical white guy who's afraid of everything or thinks this school
is a bunch of criminals?
Although the clever way these students worded their warnings would probably prevent
them from being excluded from school, their intent was clear and malevolent. The threat
of physical violence in the urban high school creates a heightened sense of alienation and is
as real for student teachers as it is for students. Sometimes racial comments can erupt into
violence between students. When that kind of behavior becomes epidemic, many school
systems adopt a "let's go all out and address this problem" attitude and swamp students in a
mire of workshops, meetings, lectures and media blitz of anti-racial information. Too
much of a cure, however, can be as negative as too little, something evident in the
following comment by Jennifer Benares, an English student teacher at Sussex High School:
It was tough because there were a lot of racial tensions in class. There were one or two
fights in class. The kids didn't want to talk about racial issues or prejudice or anything
like that. "We're sick of that. We're bored with that. I hate prejudice. Let's not talk
about it."
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But many student teachers do have to deal with it, and therein lies the difficulty. When
students do not want to address the problem, student teachers often become uncertain
about what to do. Taking a particular course of action which seems fair sometimes
contradictory, but in Jennifer's class that was precisely what happened, and it was easily
discernible by others:
It just so happens that many of my students who are coming from troubled homes were
kids of color. And I definitely had varied expectations according to what their lives
were like outside of school. And I paid more attention to black kids than others for the
same reason, and I tried to really push that self-esteem and make them feel good for
eveiything that they did. And students never told me that they noticed that, but they did
tell me that they noticed me treating the black kids not as strictly as I should. And they
were wondering if it was because they were black. And I said, "Well, no. It's not
because they are black." I really do think it was because they were black.
vehicle for avoiding bias can fool the white student teacher into a state of believing that
those actions are justified. Even when questioned by some students about the inequitable
attention paid to African American students, Jennifer's uncertainty activated her defense
mechanisms which automatically caused her to deny what she really felt underneath. It
Unlike Jennifer, who eventually acknowledged her preferential treatment for students
of color, Peter Macelroy maintained that he was not watering down his tests or giving away
answers to his diverse classes in order to get them to succeed despite their unusually high
grades. When questioned by other members of the Social Studies Department at Leighton
High School about how easy his tests were or how obvious his review techniques were,
Some people might think that I had to compromise, but I wasn’t. I was just acting
myself. It's the way that I have always been. That's the way I was brought up, at least
by my mother. This was the way my feelings were developed at American University.
I'm just not the prejudiced type person.
In failing to recognize the possibility that he might have (at least in the eyes of
department teachers) gone beyond reasonable bounds in attempting to get his minority
students to pass his tests, Peter may have underestimated the complexity of the problem.
In stressing that he is "just not the prejudiced type person," he takes the stance that other
teachers who do not water down their tests or adjust their review methods to make sure
students of color pass are in fact being discriminatoiy. Sometimes reflecting on how to
deal with racial distinctions leads to revealing answers, some with a realistic tone such as
You know, there is a distinction, but it's very gray, between prejudice and recognizing
difference. We are different absolutely. And I think to just say, "Ah let's come
together, and everything will be great” is dangerous, fm not the same. And if I'm
trying to just say we're the same, that there's no difference, I'm going to hurt those kids.
As Trevor warned, it is not always easy to judge whether actions or words reflect
considered when raising questions and not often time enough to consider them adequately
before using them. Some questions lead to answers based on a perspective of the student
teacher's past life and a comparison of that to the lives of the students he or she teaches. In
this example, however, more is evident. Jennifer Benares commented on the ways she had
I have a fortunate life, and I had a comfortable life, and so Tm looking at these kids who
are less fortunate and trying to make up for it and give them some of what I had. And
they have people [minority educators] who come from a background where they had to
struggle to make it, and they say, "Well, I had to do it, you have to do it too." fve come
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across professors who are not natives who are picky and strict about grammar and
spelling and who really nailed the students whose grammar was awful. And I thought,
wouldn't a non-native speaker sympathize with this?
The tone of Jennifer's question clearly suggests that she felt the professors of color she
had observed were harsh and unforgiving. But as a white student teacher she was
uncertain about why they established rigid standards and whether or not their methodology
classroom primarily filled with students of color can help in adjusting, and making a
conscious attempt not to appear to know it all can improve relations in the classroom. Still
Jennifer had doubts about her ability to be effective compared to that of an educator of
color:
It’s really difficult because you can’t speak from experience, and I don’t think there’s that
validity there that you need. Does this mean that I'm not going to be respected or
trusted by kids of color? Are they just going to say, "She’s a white lady. She doesn’t
know where I'm coming from.” One of the reasons that did not happen is because I
took time out when an issue came up to have a discussion, and I didn’t pretend to have
any answers or to be the authority.
I still feel as though I'm not in the position to teach or preach or educate black kids
or Hispanic kids about their background and their history and their culture. Granted
they don’t know a lot of it, and I may know more than they do, but I ask myself
wouldn't this be a little more effective coming from someone of color?
The latter part of this statement indicates Jennifer's uncertainty and concern. After
reflecting on her question asking whether or not only educators of color can truly reach
students of color, Jennifer was able to suggest another perspective, one which offers a
classroom:
There is something to be said for a white woman or a white man teaching black
histoiy, black literature, Hispanic literature or Hispanic history because it, in the eyes of
the white kids at least, credits that histoiy or that literature or that culture. But still I
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always look out into the eyes of those kids of color and wonder what they think of this
young white girl in the classroom teaching them.
Perhaps what Jennifer and other white student teachers need to know is that it is
acceptable and normal to be uncertain about how they are perceived by students of color.
In the classroom familiarity generally does not breed contempt; it decreases alienation by
increasing deeper understanding and acceptance. Ten to fourteen weeks is usually not a
long enough period of time to remove all the racial barriers that exist between people, but a
semester or a full year might allow adequate time to make significant progress. While that
might clear up some questions involving effectiveness, however, it would still not answer
In the arena of the urban high school what is culturally acceptable to students may be
morally unacceptable to student teachers. Such is the case with the term "nigger,” a racial
anathema in America for centuries. Language and gesture have always been powerful
weapons often used by the educated, wealthy class to control the largely uneducated, lower
class. But language and gesture can be an equally powerful means of achieving solidarity
within racial or ethnic boundaries. Alienation of the white student teacher in this sense is
directly caused by the exclusive use of derogatory terms among students of color. How to
handle the situation becomes an area of concern for white student teachers who are not
familiar with the unwritten rules of the schools, those that can be picked up only through
Sal Cheblanc, an English student teacher at Leighton High School was clearly upset at
They use the word "nigger" constantly. I understand when they use it with their
friends. Do they understand the histoiy of the word? It can go either way, and when
someone says it in a nasty way, I stop them, and I say 'Don't even say that, alright?" I
know it is a term of endearment. They use it, and you cant stop them. It's just natural.
It's part of the language which changes everyday. It's a nasty, dirty, degrading, low
word.
Where does one draw the line between free speech and racial slur? When do the
personal convictions of the student teacher take precedence over the communication rights
of the students? Uncertainty once again becomes apparent. As upset as Sal was, he
acknowledged that the situation was beyond his control ("you cant stop them") and that he
was willing to deal with it only when the term was used in a "nasty way." What Sal did not
realize is that allowing use of the term at any time and in any way is construed as
acquiescence by urban high school students. In giving them wider berth, he narrows the
range of his own authority. Peter Macelroy, who also did his student teaching at Leighton,
One thing at Leighton High, Hispanics call each other cultural "nigger." "Hey, what's
up nigger?" And that strikes me as weird being that A) they're not black and B) I hate
that word. This kid in my class said "nigger," and I spoke to him very softly and said, "I
just want to tell you. I do not ever want to hear that word in my class. It's a derogatory
term, and I do not want to hear it in my class." I was very upset about it because
Tamara was black. He never said it again, and the class knew that that word was off
limits in my classes.
Within his classroom Peter was apparently successful in preventing his students from
repeating the offense although his reason for being upset ("Tamara was black") should be
predicated on the negativity of the word rather than the presence of someone who would
be directly affected by its use. But what happens when the reference is made by an
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knowledge and possibly the experiential knowledge of white student teachers clash with the
nonchalant, insensitive attitude of those who would seemingly bash members of their own
culture, should student teachers ignore or challenge the perpetrators of heinous language
crimes? Jack Wilson, a Social Studies student teacher at Leighton High School, became
extremely upset:
I hear this phrase all the time in this school referring to other kids as "niggers." It really
irks me. I heard it again this morning. I cringed and grit my teeth and said to myself
"Dam, if these kids ever really knew what that word is and what it has been used for
and what it has been used to do then they wouldn't use it." The hair on the back of my
neck stands up because I know what the word is. The meaning is not really being
changed because they're still using it for a reason. And the reason is similar.
Jack's words mirror his moral discontent. Whether or not he is able to continue to "grit
his teeth" and allow students of color to celebrate their own culture albeit in a derogatory
society administrators, teachers, student teachers and students would all have a voice.
What happens when one voice conflicts with another? Who really has the power to
become the dominant voice? In a democratic society where, at least in theory, the majority
rules, the sheer number of students who wish to use the term would outweigh the number
of students and faculty members who dont. But the issue of voice is even more
The word, "nigger," unlike "bastard" for example, is not up for grabs. It can be used by
Caucasians, but it can never be used by Caucasians to refer to people of color. James
Ramaska, a social studies student teacher at Leighton High School and a former college
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basketball player was able to shed some light on the subject through earlier dialogue with
an African American friend, but he was still befuddled by the inclusivity of what the term
There is one thing that blows my mind about how that is used as commonplace by
Hispanics to describe Hispanics, Hispanics to describe blacks, Hispanics to describe
whites. Now a white person is a "nigger." It blows my mind Like they're talking
about Larry Bird, and they will say, "That nigger can shoot." It's amazing. I had a
friend in college who was black, and he used that word. He used it all the time, and I
asked him why he said it. Part of it, he explained to me, was to get the shock out of the
word, to make it commonplace so it's not a big thing. But I don't understand the
justification of Hispanic people.
everyone. How can the color of the user determine whether a word is a term of
endearment or a racial curse? If the white student teacher interferes, what is the risk he or
she takes in terms of the image he or she wishes to portray? In the context of
took the liberty of asking his students directly how they would react to his using the word.
Their immediate reaction taught him a lesson and reinforced his feeling that a hands off
policy before and after class would work better for him. Still he was uncomfortable with
the situation:
Nigger was used constantly, and I said "What about if I used it?" And they said
"No—totally!" There was no hesitation—totally different story. And I've heard that a
lot, and I still tended to let a lot of stuff like that go as long as it wasn't directly visible in
class. If I heard kids talking about it in my class before the bell or something-even
swearing—I would let it go. I don't know if that's good or bad.
Trevor was willing to take the risk of asking his students what would happen if he used
the term. He was given a clear and definitive answer which affected not only the way he
would handle future instances involving the word, "nigger," but the way he would handle
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swearing as well: unfortunately he chose to ignore them. His idea of "letting it go" was
predicated on fear. In not making waves, he avoided confrontation and eliminated the
immediate aggravation a confrontation might have caused him. What he does not see is the
long term results of his silent acquiescence. Unchecked behavior or language can become
the status quo, and once that occurs, stopping it can become impossible.
During his practicum Trevor befriended an African American teacher at Dickson High
School who refused to tolerate the term, "nigger," and who had the confidence to disallow
its use:
My friend who was black had a real problem with it and wouldn't allow it in his class.
You've got to be real careful. I think it was so tough for me because I was from the
outside coming in. Like who am I to tell him {a student} what language to use? That's
why it was tough for me.
Unlike his African American colleague, Trevor did not feel comfortable telling
culturally different students that they could or could not use certain words regardless of the
possibly harmless intent of the speakers. He was uncertain about the parameters of his
authority and uneasy about feeling isolated from his charges because of his color. It was
"tough" for him because he knew he should have taken some action. But there was a risk.
In the process of trying to explain the use of language and the reasons and the ways
authors use language to portray characters, Jennifer Benares took that risk and suddenly
I heard blacks calling blacks "niggers." I didn't hear it amongst the girls. Just the guys.
When I was doing some reading out loud, I once read the word "nigger." A couple of
the kids, blacks and Hispanics, gasped. I said, "Well listen, it's written this way for a
purpose." And they didn't understand that at all "Miss Benares, what did you say
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now? That's awful. That's racist." And I said, "Why did I say that?" Someone said,
"She said it because it was written like that."
Should white student teachers (or white teachers for that matter) cower every time
avoided will those issues not continue to plague society? Although Jennifer's willingness to
take a chance resulted in some students being taken aback, she was able to spark a dialogue
epithet, "nigger," has a female counterpart, "bitch." From its etymological definition of
female dog to its popular connotation of a crabby, domineering woman, "bitch" has
undergone a further metamorphosis. This change makes the gray area of racist language
A kid had a T shirt on that said "bitches aint nothing but whores and tricks." I
recognized that this was a kid thing, but I tried to play into it, and I kind of started
laughing, and I said, "Man, I bet you get a lot of girls with that shirt on,” and he said,
"What do you mean?" and I said, "Well, look what you're saying. Women must hate
you." He said, "No," and I asked a couple of the girls, and they said "No, that’s not
true," and the thing is that they were wrong because if you look at the context of the
statement, they're talking about all women.
When the victim of a language crime does not feel victimized, can the perpetrator be
rightfully punished? Should a white student teacher try to convince female students of
color that they should be upset as women when indirectly or directly referred to as
"bitches," "whores" or "tricks?" The issue of language is not to be taken lightly. The
white student teacher needs to consider what course of action he or she should take long
before entering the practicum. Questions involving the kind of image, particularly in terms
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thoroughly.
In terms of racial issues, the urban classroom was neither melting pot nor salad bowl for
many of the student teachers in my study. As the data indicated, the uncertainty and
alienation felt by them and, in some cases, by their students of color became dominant
themes, while exclusivity became the dominant theme in terms of racist language.
Since neglecting to address these issues before the practicum can result in actions or
words leading to violence, litigation or unrest, serious attention must be paid to them during
graduate education classes specifically focused on these urban issues and during the
and explain street language to future teachers would bring the urban classroom to the
university and break down some of the communication barriers that currently exist. As
much time as is possible should be spent in the classrooms and corridors of urban high
schools observing the actions and language of students prior to the practicum.
CHAPTER V
Issues involving gender abound during the student teacher's practicum. They run across
sexual, racial, cultural, age, collegial, ethical and sexual preference lines. Predispositions
concerning gender issues are part of the baggage student teachers bring with them. In the
lawsuit-happy era we live in, the student teacher's performance and attitude can also be
affected severely.
Because some gender issues are not exclusive to urban locations, I have not included
many excerpts which reflected feelings engendered by incidents which could have just as
easily taken place in a suburban setting. For purposes of analyzing the urban practicum, it
makes sense to leave these out, but potential student teachers need to understand that
regardless of the environment in which they exist, all gender issues need to be considered
carefully. For that reason I simply describe the themes of discomfort and playfulness
which encompass those areas which are common to both urban and suburban high schools.
In a decade in which sexual harassment has been recognized as a serious crime and
become the object of a national media blitz, most of my male participants suffered
discomfort in the solitary presence of female students. The main area of concern involved
a male student teacher being alone with a female student in a classroom. This scenario
provides fertile ground for charges of sexual harassment and demonstrates the vulnerability
of the male student teacher. None of my female participants voiced anxiety about this
issue, but that clearly does not mean it does not apply to female student teachers. My
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simple advice to student teachers in any school is never to close the door when in a
For some of my participants, playfulness became the means of dealing with sexual
innuendoes and flirting. Both male and female participants participated in light sexual
unintentionally expressed more than a marginal interest in female anatomy. With particular
reference to the current politically correct climate, it is unwise to indulge in any of the
In the urban high school classroom, the sexual behavior of students is often tied to their
culture. In the Hispanic culture, which is patriarchal in nature, males are encouraged to
develop "machismo" and are accustomed to flaunting it in front of girls they find
challenging or attractive. The female student teacher makes an ideal candidate as a trying
ground for sexual advances. At Leighton High School Juilie Boswick played it low key
They're just very affectionate, Hispanic males. A couple of them tried to hug me. "Oh,
Miss Boswick!" A lot of them have that macho attitude. It's kind of cute. It's funny. I
used to laugh about it because they used to think they were so cool, these little sixteen
year old kids. I would just joke and say, "You know that's inappropriate," but I didn't
really make a big fuss.
Julie understood the importance of being wary of sexual actions and innuendoes, and
more important, of being aware of how she should react to them. She did not allow herself
to be ruffled. Maintaining her composure, she was able to defuse what could have turned
into a fiasco by downplaying the incidents as silly, boyish games. But Julie was a
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twenty-nine year old, single mother with an impish sense of humor. She also understood
that in the urban classroom showing embarrassment or overreacting are open invitations to
trouble. Student teachers are on display at all times; every word, every gesture, every
More factors come into play when the issue of disciplining male students becomes
necessary, not the least of which is the physical dichotomy between females and males.
The ancient Greeks had a word for excessive pride, "hubris," and its presence is no
stranger to the urban arena. Three of the four female student teachers in my study had
serious doubts about their ability to discipline male students. In most instances it was the
younger male students who went out of their way to challenge their female oppressors. At
Leighton High School Terry Anson expressed her frustration with a male freshman student
I don't know how much he [a male student] listens to anyone in an authority position. I
would think he would probably have tendencies to listen to George [male cooperating
teacher] more than me. I don't know if maybe that's because he has been here
twenty-five years, and I've only been here a few months, or because he's a guy and I'm
a girl. I dont know.
Terry's comment begins with a fair assumption that the young man in question would
be a behavior problem for any teacher but ends with the suspicion that it is her gender that
might be the reason for the boy's refusal to behave. Her question is understandable and
worth examining in terms of the variables involved: 1) her cooperating teacher was in his
forties which makes age a factor; 2) her cooperating teacher had been in the classroom for
twenty-four years which makes experience a factor; 3) her cooperating teacher was a male
which makes gender a factor. What complicates the issue is the fact that any one or any
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combination of these factors could be responsible for the boy's behavior. If gender is the
issue, and machismo is the problem, much of Terry's self doubt can be erased.
Understanding the possibility that gender issues in the urban classroom are often based on
cultural differences can significantly effect the way student teachers handle them.
Monica Pellante, a daughter of educators and a sibling of several sisters, was excited
about but wary of student teaching at Leighton High School. Diminutive in size and
looking more like sixteen than twenty-three, she was an avid and outspoken feminist, and
her frustration with disciplining boys left her frazzled by the end of each day. She openly
admitted that it seemed like a hopeless task. During her interview she used quantifiable
gender comparisons in rationalizing her lack of control: 'Tm outsized and outnumbered.
It's mostly boys. Some of them are men or think they are."
How often have we heard the stories of diminutive female teachers who scared the
bejeepers out of boys "in the old days?" Among the twenty-six members of my own
English Department staff, twenty are women; all seasoned veterans, all shapes and sizes, all
effective classroom managers. Still the struggle for power in the classroom is a serious
issue for even the most experienced teachers. That struggle became magnified, however,
Monica's close proximity in age to some of her male students magnifies the gender issue
as well. And in the urban high school the age range of students far exceeds that in
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suburban high schools. Particularly in urban settings which service large numbers of
students whose first language is not English, many students in their twenties enroll for a
year or two to learn English and then drop out. (I had a twenty-nine year old Cambodian
student in a freshman class.) Many students from war tom countries come in with
Female student teachers who discipline male students who are as old as or even older
than they are can find themselves in awkward situations. Monica specifically mentioned
that Pedro liked to be in charge. Later she told me that Pedro was a nineteen year old
Dominican boy in a small freshman basic English class filled with thirteen and fourteen
year olds. Clearly Pedro was under the gun to tout his manhood when in the presence of a
young white student teacher. Even if he didn't want to, he would have had to verbally
Whether one calls it "machismo" or "hubris," the action of bolstering one’s masculine
ego through aggression or other forms of misbehavior becomes part of a control game
often played by males at the expense of females. Monica continued to make reference to
the consistency of the macho attitude in female company within and outside of school
walls:
They have to prove they're not going to listen to a young woman. They have to flaunt
it. It's a game, especially with me coming in as a young, white woman. Same game
guys pull when they're with their friends and their girlfriend, and they have to show
who's in charge. They cant show that they're weak to women.
Monica's almost obsessive concern with this gender issue seemed too strong not to have
connections with the past. In a later part of the interview she returned to the macho theme
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but this time indicated a deep rooted anger at the double standard of sexual inequality
They were going to flex; it was a very macho class. I don't work well with macho. I
always had a problem with some guys and certain attitudes and certain ways that they're
allowed to do what they are allowed to do and that whole "boys will be boys" type
attitude. I had problems with it when I was younger and see a lot of it coming out now.
The urban practicum raked up the ashes of discontent and then added fuel to Monica's
fire. Even though she recognized the conditions under which boys showed disrespect for
her, she felt compelled to retaliate: 'Tor the most part if they're alone, boys in the basic
class, one on one, are okay. Get them with a friend, and they're awful. They have to fight
me. I realize that, and I fight them back." But how one chooses to fight can lead to
amelioration or aggravation of the problem. So strong is the macho code, for example,
that it even disallowed conversation outside of the classroom walls: "Most of the boys
outside the class would walk past me in the hallway except for an eye or a hi or a nod
because they can’t be talking to me. The girls will stop and talk to me."
There are no easy solutions to Monica's difficulty with her male students at Leighton
High School. Although part of the problem may be predicated on her underlying historical
anger and how it affected her reaction, part of it is clearly unavoidable and based on the
cultural values of the students she was dealing with. What makes this situation more
difficult is that Monica was aware of these cultural differences and was still not able to
adapt comfortably.
Despite the tremendous gains women have made as a result of the feminist movement
over the last two decades, some cultures have not understood the message. The way men
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treat women is mirrored in the way that boys treat girls. How that treatment is accepted
can be frustrating for student teachers, especially those that espouse equality among the
sexes. The notion of "machismo" again comes into play, but what is more disturbing
according to Peter Macelroy who student taught in the Social Studies Department at
Hispanic boys:
The males in that school are very lazy. The females are the ones who do all of the
work and the ones that are positive. I can always count on the females to lead things.
The males would always do it half ass. I was talking with one of the Hispanic aides
who said, "These males are being babied by their mothers. They dont have any father
figures in their life, so they're babied, and that's why they're so lazy." I couldn't count
on them. The guys would make comments and talk in Spanish and say filthy things
about females. Hispanic females did not have a positive self worth about themselves.
Though not exclusive to urban locations, the problem of absentee fathers is certainly a
freedom for Hispanic boys as compared to specific household chores and very strict rules
for Hispanic girls result in very different behavior and achievement patterns in the school.
In my experience it is the mother who shows up for mandatory parent conferences after a
suspension ninety percent of the time. Most put up their hands and say there's not much
More evidence gathered from conversations with Hispanic friends convinced Peter that
he was fighting a difficult battle. Their words were even more convincing to him when he
considered an earlier trip to Europe where he had noticed similar treatment of women:
This is something that some of my Hispanic friends have even told me. In the Hispanic
culture, a woman is not treated with that much respect; they're second class. And I
found this even when I was in Europe; the same thing. It's not just Hispanic; females
are considered second class, and they're just not treated with much respect.
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Peter, who had attended a liberal college and who proclaimed himself a feminist,
wanted to change the image his female students had of themselves and embarked on a
campaign to do so. Among the male participants in my study, he was not alone in his
perception of the dichotomy which existed in the Hispanic culture involving the roles of
women and men. James Ramaska, who also student taught in the Social Studies
Department at Leighton High School, made these observations which have a traditional
From the boys I see a lot of it as just talk, but I see a lot of what a man's place is and
what a women's place is. A woman's place is to cook, clean, have kids, and I'm not
really sure what a man's place is.
Perhaps the most telling comment in this excerpt is that James can not identify "what a
man's place is" in the Hispanic culture. While one can look at the traditional American
role of men and women in terms of the man being a breadwinner and the woman taking
care of family matters, it is not difficult to see that the only thing that has changed is the
role of men. From breadwinners to babies who are pampered by their mothers and are
fortified in their indolence by images on MTV and other media sources, many have not
only demeaned women but eroded women's sense of self respect. Well intentioned though
he was, Peter was unable to convince young, female students that they were allowing
themselves to be abused:
Women don't respect themselves or other women. I gave a lesson about how we can
use songs to look at society. Some of the girls brought in very powerful songs about
love and about religion, and one girl brought in the song, "Rump Shaker." And I said,
"This is good. You're bringing this in to show the negativity and the way women are
thought of as sexual objects in songs." "No, Mr. Macelroy, I like this song. I think it's
great." I said, "Do you know how degrading it is to you, to all females? And she said,
"Well, the only women that get offended by songs like this are ones that are fat." I was
at a loss. That whole day I just couldn't believe it.
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Enlightening students about their blind acceptance of abuse is no easy task, but it is
essential to work at it until they understand what they are doing. Rather than rallying in
defense of their common pride as women in this case, they chose to segregate themselves
from fat women as if the descriptor, "fat," were a gender disqualification. They failed to
see that they too were being discriminated against and that accepting this level of
Peter found this attitude of acceptance pervasive. Except for a few instances where
female students raised their voices, girls allowed themselves to be physically and verbally
There were a few girls that would say, Tm a lady. You do not treat me like that,” but
most of the cases it'd just be kind of silent, and they wouldn't say anything or they
would laugh. In the corridor guys would take girls' bra straps and grab them or kiss
girls or those types of things, grab their butt or look at the girl's ass and whistle when
they went by or things like that. Scary enough. I really think that the rap music that
they listen to is so derogatory towards women. That has an effect on them. They call
women a "hoe” or a "skeezer” or something like that, and that's no big deal to them.
If this kind of behavior is not discouraged, it will become the norm. If this kind of
behavior becomes the norm, new students who enter the urban schools will question their
own values and soon view it as acceptable. The question is not "should we get the
message across to male and female students in urban high schools that this defamation is
wrong" but "how can we get that message across." Peter's last comment, "that's no big
deal to them," may be a sad commentary of the general state of mind of many Hispanic
students in urban high schools, but it also gives educators a place to start. We have to
make it a" big deal" to them and work from there. Student teachers need to be aware of
Many students in urban high schools come from families that have been split asunder by
violence, poverty or divorce. A friendly smile or the right combination of words can be
interpreted as an immediate haven for those in need. In his efforts to reach out to his
students, Peter made himself accessible to them and found himself in an awkward position:
A lot of kids came to the office to say hello or to discuss problems, and I was getting
really afraid. I didn't know if I was getting too close to the students. One girl was
pregnant, and she came in and said, "Oh, Mr. Macelroy, when I have my baby, are you
going to come and see me?" I was the only positive, male, adult figure in their lives. A
lot of them really got close to me, even the tough kids who weren’t touchy feely or
anything like that.
While most of us feel good when we are needed, we have to be aware that we are not
the saviors of students; we are their teachers. Withdrawing from a position of support to
one of bystander can be awkward or painful, and that withdrawal can become necessary if
the distance between teacher and student is totally eliminated. While it is important to
provide individual academic help when it is asked for, it is dangerous to go beyond that.
Fortunately there are usually some support services student teachers can call on in times of
need. By law, issues of abuse, for example, must be reported to the administration. Doing
that can be interpreted by students as a breach of confidence which would then put the
student teacher in a very difficult position. Regardless the law is quite explicit in this area.
There was one girl, and she told me how her babysittter molested her. I mean what
could I do? She was crying. I spoke to her and asked her if she had ever got any
counseling. That’s when I set her up with the school psychologist.
Student teachers who ask students to write journals on a weekly basis are even at
greater risk than Peter was. Because they do not have to talk face to face with the teacher,
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students are far more likely to include details of their lives in their journals they would
never reveal in person, particularly urban students who often are missing one or both
parents and have no trusting adults to talk to. Issues of abuse mentioned in journals can be
used as legal evidence as well as the reponses of the student teacher to the student. It is
therefore necessary for student teachers who require journals to forewarn students about
Knowing about specific gender issues in urban high schools such as machismo and the
affects that absent fathers have on their children before entering the practicum will
probably not prevent them from occurring. It might, however, help some student teachers
in developing a mental readiness which will allow them to at least cope with situations
when they occur. Although she made it through her practicum, Monica Pellante was under
considerable stress throughout. Had she been aware of the kinds of gender issues she had
to face in the practicum, she might have chosen a suburban location instead of Leighton
High School. Not everyone is cut out to teach in an urban high school, but that does not
mean success cannot be reached at alternative locations. After exposure to the urban
strengths, weaknesses and needs should be made before selecting the location of the
practicum.
CHAPTER VI
How they teach, what they teach and why they teach it have much to do with the
quality of the urban practicum experience for student teachers. Without exception the
student teachers who participated in this project had exposure to critical pedagogy in their
readings and/or class discussions during their teacher preparation. Their comments in this
section reveal the significance of that exposure in terms of how they feel about their role.
Knowingly participating in the exploitation of the working class by teaching in sub par
urban high schools which concentrate on reproducing candidates for low paying jobs was
concerning the negative images of urban high schools and urban high school students
foisted by the media onto a much too willing public indicates the seriousness of the
victimizes students as does curriculum which requires the regurgitation of material learned
by rote.
training, it was apparent that the bulk of teachers used lecture more often than any other
method. The safety of the lecture method, centered around transferring knowledge while
not having to deal with difficult or silly questions, does not offset the negative side effects-
the boredom and the lack of communication between teacher and students. Most of my
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participants were vociferous about the importance of a two-way process. Terry Anson, a
student teacher in science, was clear about what she wanted with her students:
I don't like the lecture method. I dont want to talk at kids. I want to have
conversations. I want to interact. I want to offer ideas and see what they think. I want
them to agree or disagree. I don’t want to stand up there and go roodeeroodeedoo and
assume that they're all getting it. I want them to be able to say I dont understand so
maybe I can try to give it to them another way. I need to have that exchange.
with students is a vital part of that relationship, one that encourages participation and
becomes egalitarian in nature. For that to take place, Terry would have had to first
establish a safe place where students would be unafraid to voice their opinions and an
orderly environment where their voices could be heard. Lecture, on the other hand, is a
form of teaching which controls behavior by forcing students to listen without reacting.
Reactions can cause problems; the easiest way to avoid problems, therefore, is to lecture.
Unfortunately many urban teachers adhere to that methodology throughout their careers.
Jack Wilson understood the importance of having some established structure before
beginning interactive communication. But Jack also recognized the absurdity and
Once there's guidance, once there's structure, then there's some sense of coherency
instead of anarchy, and it's needed. But in terms of teaching, depositing is not enough.
You cant drop things, and students will have them, and not do anything more with it.
You just expect it through osmosis to enter their psyche.
In the urban classroom it is order which must be first established in terms of acceptable
student behavior, but once the ground rules are in place and behavior is manageable, the
How often have we heard the comment, "Why do I have to learn this stuff? HI never
use it.” Actually the comment is a fair one although the answer is not easy. For many
urban students with no plans of attending college, learning a skill seems far more useful
Terry Anson saw a common base of general knowledge as a fundamental building block
I see the purpose of teaching as giving students the general knowledge they need to get
by in everyday life whatever they do, whether it is go on to college or go on to work.
There's basic general knowledge you need to have to be able to watch the news, to read
the newspaper. That's where a lot of the science that I teach fits in because you need to
know some of these basic things to be able to understand everyday life. I don't really
see it as preparing students for college or for work.
Drawing a parallel between Hamlet and Simba in "The Lion King" or explaining what
is happening to the air we breathe because of the destruction of the rain forests are ways to
make learning relevant. If we exclude the thinking process in urban schools and focus
solely on the development of marketable work skills, we will doom urban kids to the fate of
Regardless of their discipline, urban student teachers see the need for high school
preparation as broad based. Communications skills are high on the list of priorities for
I don't really see teaching as trying to gear these kids towards a certain future and
employment There are so many basic things that you can learn in high school that
that's enough to focus on. And the basic things would be just getting along with other
kids, figuring out how to communicate effectively, how to write, how to read. I didn't
really focus on "This is going to be important because you're going to use it in your
job."
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But Raymond's last statement is precisely what business is interested in, and business is
taking a more active role in the educational process, particularly in urban areas which will
provide the work force for manufacturing. Many large businesses are "adopting" urban
high schools and exposing students to work environments on field trips. Work study
programs have always been popular in the urban sector and continue to flourish. The lure
of immediate money in the short run can be far more attractive than the years of study and
Getting teachers and students to believe in the power of education for everyone is no
easy task. Jack Wilson expressed fear about the historical precedents of labeling and
I'm fearful some of these decent kids here who are hard-working and who want to get
ahead are being painted with a dirty brush. It's dirty from centuries of painting people
into a comer and pigeonholing them. Tm still hungry. I still want the opportunity to
impart upon them the importance of thinking and the ability to make decisions and not
just go through life making the motions.
That desire to emancipate urban students from their inherited fate was shared by most
of my participants. But one of the tenets of critical pedagogy calls for far more than desire.
unconscious. Jack saw the need for urban students to be made conscious of their status
They're aware of the class that they're in, but they need to be made more aware of it, of
how it's viewed to go to school in an inner city which has some real negative
connotations to it. It's my job to make them aware of how they're viewed, how they
can change it or what is out there for them.
It is easy for students to become urban couch potatoes who watch life pass them by in a
state of apathy and mediocrity. Resistance should be their shield; action, their sword. Jack
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saw his job as empowering urban students by making them critical thinkers capable of
Within the framework of critical pedagogy is the notion of power; who has it and why.
Julie Boswick, a Social Studies participant voiced concerns over the importance of an
education:
I worry that my kids might not vote their whole life. I said to them, "If you get nothing
else, if you don’t listen any other day, you listen today. The day you give up your right
to vote is the day you're letting other people make decisions for you. Don't let people
who have a good vocabulary and have real powerful positions in this country think they
own it because they dont. You do." And I get carried away, but I really believe that.
Julie clearly cared about her students and attempted to convince them that their active
participation in the voting process was their only true opportunity to have a say in their own
lives. She tried to tell them that education is power—that it can free them from the shackles
of low self esteem and depression. This theme was carried on by Sal Cheblanc, an English
student teacher who vilified white males although he is among their ranks:
"Do you remember king of the mountain when you were a kid out at recess in grammar
school?" And they said, "Yeah," and I said, "Well, do you know who the king of the
mountain was? You know: white males. It's a blatant fact." I'm not a liberal. I'm not
leftist, but it’s just a plain truth. From then we went into integration and why it still
exists and the crimes that are committed against people, and the fact that I allowed them
to think, to get their thoughts out, that's a part of what an English class is. It's a
communications course. Learning how to communicate and getting your thoughts out,
something, that they haven't done. They circle the letters. I have seniors who cant
write sentences."
Because of students' poor writing skills and the inordinate amount of time it takes to
correct essay exams, urban schools rely heavily on objective testing which is machine
scorable. Students who take objective tests utilize the skills of recognition and recall.
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thinking skills. But recognition and recall skills are precisely what are needed in
manufacturing jobs. It is only recently that open ended essay questions are being included
in mandatory state tests. Students must be given more than a voice; they must be taught
Many urban students who are faced with the prospect of having to take more
vision of success, they begin to believe that they lack the ability to achieve. This too
I tell my freshman class at least every week. TheyH say, Tm stupid." HI say, "No,
nobody in here is." That's the trap that they have. So I say, "You're all smart. Some of
you dont try enough." I really believe that, I really do. Some of them are locked into a
situation where they dont hear standard English enough. They're in a family that
doesnt speak it enough.
bilingual students are mainstreamed too quickly, they find themselves unable to compete
with native English speakers. It does not take long for many of them to develop a defeatist
Some students come to believe they are not intelligent because of a history of low
expectations held by previous teachers who leave an indelible mark on their charges. Jack
There are expectations that have already been stamped on their foreheads before I
walked in the room and expectations that they’ve absorbed, whether it be self-fulfilling
prophecies or not. The expectations are that these kids cant do the work, cant write,
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can't think, therefore, they’re not taught well. What would follow is that theyH never
leam-at least not here at Leighton High.
It is easy for teachers to believe that students cannot achieve when those students
themselves believe it and go out of their way to demonstrate their self imposed inability to
learn. There is little wonder why both students and teachers often revert to lecture,
meaningless exercises and quiet reading periods to fill the time. Again what critical
pedagogy calls for is action—not only providing students with meaningful learning but
encouraging them to develop a voice and take action. For Sal Cheblanc it became a
conscious effort:
I try to empower them. They are now aware this is a white male dominated society,
and they are aware that it is okay to criticize the country if you do it in a productive
manner instead of just sitting back and saying "this place sucks." Even if you don’t go
up to the White House banging on the door, you can sit down and talk with other
people and discuss it as a relevant issue—as part of your life, as an injustice. It’s a
beginning. They're really interested, and they see it as respect for me because I let them
know that I care that they know this stuff. I recognize them as individuals by doing this,
and I recognize them as immigrants by doing this. It feels good giving them truth
instead of regurgitating a story or an anthology for the hundreth time.
With the current national fear of right wing militia groups and the President's words
about love for country and love for government as necessarily synonymous, the cry for
action must be tempered by diplomacy and respect. Developing a voice means becoming
an active verbal participant, not a malcontent who uses violence to effect change.
citizens who are intellectually able to take an active role in their own governance.
The logic behind the belief that all students should "master the basics" involves
minimum competency, a sort of common denominator that says all public high school
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students will know and be able to demonstrate understanding and skills in predetermined
areas of agreement. The danger of establishing any minimum is that, for many students, it
means aspiring no higher. Get by, and you can get out Learn enough to get a job.
There's value in education. No matter what you wind up doing, and I rebel at the
notion of people who tell me, "Well, you know this kid's fifteen or sixteen, you know
he's never going to go to college and make anything of himself. Let's just get him a
certain amount of literacy and give him a high school diploma and let him go work as a
manual laborer for the rest of his life.
What does an urban high school diploma mean today? The fact that more and more
community colleges are teaching courses in E.S.L., basic composition, reading and basic
problem. The business community has put pressure on the state which has put pressure on
local school systems to come up with some common definition of what a high school
graduate can do. It is not an unreasonable request, but it may prove to be an impossible
task.
Simple demographics will show even an uninformed observer that a poor community
such as Lawrence, with the myriad of problems discussed in this dissertation, will never be
able to compete fairly on a standardized evaluation test with its suburban neighbors unless
a formula is built in which accounts for factors such as whether or not a student's first
language is other than English. But therein lies the problem. If the test is altered to
account for differences in urban schools, it will be perceived as watered down thereby
making Lawrence High School's diploma less valuable than a diploma from a suburban
high school.
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When complicated by language acquisition problems and the many other circumstances
which affect urban students, the learning process can be as frustrating for the teacher as it
is for the students. It is easy to rationalize why students cannot achieve in an urban high
school. What Peter Macelroy observed were some veteran teachers whose expectations
had gradually eroded. This created somewhat of a conflict when he began his student
teaching:
What does that say about the emphasis placed on a white school and the emphasis
placed on a Hispanic school? What we're saying is, at a white suburban school,
teachers are held accountable to their students and to their students' work. But at a
Hispanic inner city school, teachers can do whatever the hell they want. What are we
saying right there? They should instill values in the kids. They should try to motivate
the kids. They should try to watch the kids. Monitor them very closely. They have to
be a part of a growing experience.
Peter, although unaware of factors he could not possibly come to know in his short
practicum, was not blind to urban teachers who had given up. Teachers who can name a
myriad of legitimate problems that interfere with the learning process can also fall into the
habit of using them as excuses for not even trying. Accountability can be countermanded
easily with conditions that call for exceptions. Part of the problem is that when teachers
give up, students do as well, especially those who are marginal to begin with.
Even when teachers are conscious of the need to encourage students, they often equate
success with going to college. James Ramaska, a Social Studies student teacher, had to
catch himself when talking to his students about the future. Because he came from a
family and a class and a school system that never considered anything other than college
and because he and all of his friends went to college, it still seemed like a natural course of
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events to him. It is not a natural course of events for many urban high school students, and
sending the message that it is the end-all is not a healthy thing for students who have no
You can make probably ten times more money if you do trades or stuff like that.
Sometimes I almost want to say, "Next year, when you're in college" or "When you go
to college," but I always catch myself because I realize a lot of these kids wont be going
to college.
But even if many are not going to college, it does not mean that they're incapable of
critical thinking or that intellectual topics should be reserved for college-bound students
only. Sal Cheblanc encountered the same dilemma but found hope in the end after having
a shaky start:
You've got your college mind set. You're like "I cant wait to discuss the thesis of dark
and light," and you walk in, and you say, "What does this mean? Anyone?" On my
first supervised visit—that sounds like a divorce settlement—when I was observed, the
students didnt say a dam thing. But they finally became a lot more willing to write
down answers than to speak them. You just get these wonderful gems of answers.
They just come out with these things that they would normally be afraid to say, and if
you just poke them a little bit and get them to speak up and believe in themselves, they
come out with it.
Those gems come from students who are fully capable of understanding what they need
to do in order to succeed. As Sal so aptly put it, they simply need to be poked—not given
up on. Sometimes they're more willing to speak than to write ideas down. The student
teacher's obligation is to find a way to draw them out and to show them their thoughts are
appreciated.
James Ramaska was able to speak to the happy medium between developing a trade
If you're going to be a plumber, thats fine, but that doesn't exclude you from knowing
how to read and write or still being the most educated plumber that you can be. You're
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still going to have to deal with numbers and deal with books, and you're going to have
to read directions and use your mind a lot—not just turn a wrench.
As a teacher I'm just trying to lay as solid a base as I can for social studies. The
most important things are not only the knowledge of what basic terms and themes are in
history and government but to be able to be active and responsible citizens. It doesn't
matter what you do for a living that's the most important thing. It’s that you can
participate in the process whether it be voting or speaking your mind.
James's approach is a tribute to his desire to emancipate his students from the bonds of
ignorance by pushing them to develop the critical thinking skills that will make them
pedagogy. It is not the shape of the classroom, the height of its walls, the rigidity of its
disciplinary rules, or the timing of the bell schedule which subjugate inner city students; it is
the lack of respect for the students' intellect and the lack of an equal forum where ideas can
Part of me says they really want the structure because they have no structure outside of
school. It's the one place that they know if they do this, this and this, this is what
happens whereas outside they aren't. The consequences of what they do or dont do
aren't outlined so easily for them.
But what he didn't see is that providing structure is not enough. It is the learning within
the structure that is important, and it is the teacher who must create a learning environment
that encourages interest and active participation. It's too easy to focus on the reasons why
that cant be done. Raymond unconsciously put his defense mechanisms into motion and
convinced himself that teaching urban kids was a hopeless situation-at least for him:
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One of the basic problems that I ran into is the kids didn't care about learning, and they
didn't care about being in school. A lot of the kids were there because if they weren't
there, their parents wouldn’t get welfare. And that's the only reason why the parents
saw them. There are other circumstances too that keep them from wanting to learn, but
my problem is, at this time, I want to teach people who are interested because I've
always been interested at least to some degree in learning and knowing that learning
itself is important, but these kids—I dont think they see that.
Raymond neglected to see the challenge he identified in his own words. If urban kids
dont think learning is important, then the job of an urban educator is to show them that it
is. That is precisely what critical pedagogy is all about. As long as the masses are content
to wallow in mindlessness, those in power will remain in power. Those who live in abject
learners or at least an audience whose parents are actively involved in their children's
education may make the suburban teaching process easier, but before the teacher walks
into that classroom the students in that audience have already succeeded. The best teachers
I. Jumping into Life: Entering the Real World after High School
indicating they are of less importance is the notion of preparing students for the workplace.
Regardless of the motives of big business in developing workers to fill the necessary
functions of production lines, a process which ultimately fills the pockets of management,
the simple fact of the matter is that people need jobs to survive, and they need marketable
skills to secure those jobs. "School to Work" programs are springing up in various
communities where businesses, high schools and community colleges work together to
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develop the skills of students who will enter the job market upon graduation equipped with
There was more training towards everyday life: how to buy a car, how to do all sorts of
stuff which I didn’t learn in high school. Maybe the reason they didn't teach it to me in
high school was "You're going on to college," and ninety-nine percent of us did. "You
don’t need to know that for another four years. Your parents will be there to help you
do it.” Maybe here they have the assumption that parents aren't going to help them.
Maybe the parents aren't there. I don’t know if it's a bad thing because it's stuff they
need to know how to do, and if they're not getting it at home, a lot of them wont know
how to do it. And the reality is five percent of them are going on to college. They're
going out, and they're getting a job. They're getting an apartment next year. They're
gone from their parents' house next year-if they're not already out-which a lot of them
are. They jumped into life a lot earlier than I did.
skills rather than giving them full schedules of academically challenging courses? Or are
we being realistic and even humane by teaching them marketable skills which will land
them a job and provide them and their families with a steady income?
What continues to haunt many student teachers and others who believe in the
a worse fate than they already possess by intellectualizing them and sending them into a
world in which they no longer fit. Jack Wilson had this to say:
I am ambivalent because I don't know if I'm setting students up for failure by attempting
to develop in them the ability to criticize, to synthesize, to analyze the true meaning of
education, intelligence and themselves and their role in a society because if I do my job
and do it successfully, I may develop discontented students who later, when they go out
into society, become extremely alienated from themselves and from their job because
they say, "Hey, I am intelligent, but why am I working at MacDonalds for five dollars
an hour, or "Why am I working and loading a truck for Home Depot or for Walmart?"
I have wrestled with this philosophical dilemma for years as I do now. Somewhere in
between the emancipatory theme and the exploitative theme lies the answer to this
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problem. The arithmetic is simple-even at fast food restaurants: one manager, one
society, there have to be workers—lots of them. There will always be more production jobs
than managerial positions. Those production positions have to be filled by individuals who
have been trained to do the jobs. Conversely management positions have to be filled by
Not everyone will be a good manager. Not everyone will be a good production worker.
What is important is that everyone have an equal opportunity to become a manager and
dialectic for change. At least they will ask the question "why." That is better than
dropping their heads and blindly accepting what they think is their fate.
CHAPTER VD
Very few topics in education cause the kind of reaction that tracking brings on.
According to all of the participants in my study, teacher education programs are clearly
The plain truth of the situation, however, is that most secondary schools in
Massachusetts are tracked in some way. Many are simply renaming their class levels to
comply with the new state regulation. While I cannot speak for all teachers in urban high
schools, I did survey the twenty-six members of my own English Department in the spring
of 1994, and without exception all favored the unforced tracking system at Lawrence High
School. Essentially unforced tracking means teachers make recommendations that students
sign up for a particular level course based on students' current performance in the same
discipline. Students and parents still have the right to overrule the teacher's
recommendation and choose any level course (other than honors level or courses requiring
prerequisites) they wish. The bulk of the teachers surveyed are in their mid forties with
All of the participants in this study are in their twenties with no teaching experience.
Their comments in this section reveal an interesting dichotomy between them and the
Ill
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Frustration is the main theme centered around the issue of tracking and the
unfair to students of color and students who live in poverty, they still saw it as a necessary
evil. The word "impossible" came up several times in terms of describing the teaching of
basic level students. Those who saw heterogenous grouping as a viable alternative tied its
When studying the educational backgrounds of my participants, I noticed that all of the
public high schools they attended were tracked. Although the private or parochial schools
which the rest of my participants attended were not tracked, their exclusivity had already
screened out students who would have been placed in lower tracks. Most of my
participants were average to above average students. None of them were in a basic track.
All of my participants had been exposed to tracking issues in their university training. I
emphasize that, without exception, the slant of their teacher preparation programs was
clearly towards anti-tracking, and the effects of that slant are clear. The following
comment by Robert Greene, a student teacher in the English Department at Leighton High
I took a class called "Introduction to Urban Education," and essentially all we did was
read a book by Jeannie Oakes called Keeping Track which is sort of the bible of
anti-tracking. The gist of the book was that die tracking system was ineffective,
ethically wrong, morally wrong, discriminatory based upon race, gender in certain areas
and ultimately because it doesn't work. So my conclusion was, "Hey, it doesn't work.
Why use this system that doesn't effectively teach all the kids?" Then I got to Leighton
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High walking in with the theory that tracking was essentially evil, and after having been
through it, I am even more convinced of that.
he, in using the phrase, "all we did" and the term, "sort of the bible" seemed to feign a
sarcasm that never came to be. By the end of his practicum, in fact, he asserted that he
sentiment openly. Sal Cheblanc, who student taught in the Social Studies Department at
Leighton High School, had very strong feelings about the negative results of tracking.
Here he referred to a frequently quoted term from Rosenthal's (1968) highly publicized
The thing that bothers me is because they were labeled standard, they weren't asked to
do much, so now they either wont, or they think they cant, or they dont think then-
ideas are worthwhile... self-fulfilling prophecy.
For the urban student teacher, Sal's affirmation of Rosenthal's assertion brings greater
credence to the anti-tracking posture. If, as Sal postulates, students "won't" or think they
"cant" do the work assigned to them, laziness, boredom and/or resistance will probably
result. But in the urban arena, where reading levels of students range from primer to post
twelfth grade and where second language acquisition difficulties further exacerbate the
problem, ability grouping can make a difference in providing a less stressful transition to
the next level. Poor attendance and, in some cases, incredulous transiency rates can
destroy any efforts at cooperative learning and create animosity rather than teamwork.
It is sad that the issue of tracking has polarized so many educators and, in many case,
left little room for discussion. When the university slant against tracking becomes
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pervasive, the opposite effect can be produced. Jennifer Benares got tired of being
pounded:
My ed. courses would just dash tracking. Okay, tracking is bad, cooperative learning is
the thing, and interdisciplinary teaching. I got tired of accepting everything when I had
nothing to go on because I hadn't experienced any of it. I finally said tracking isn't so
bad
While I am not suggesting that universities which espouse heterogeneous grouping drop
their contention that it works better, I am asserting that a more even handed dialogue needs
to take place which at least acknowledges the arguments for tracking and includes
When student teachers are given basic level classes (a frequently occurring
phenomenon), many of them become disheartened quickly. When tied in with discipline
problems and attendance problems, low tracked classes become the mountain of
What English class was to the kids in the freshman basic class was this place that you
went, and there would be three or four people there. Nobody ever went. You were
never able, you didn't really do anything because no lessons could build from day to
day. You couldn't do any lesson today that you did yesterday or anything that built on
any homework that you did. It was not possible to build consistency into instruction. I
sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to be a student in that class.
The dwindling number of students in Robert's basic level class added to the dilemma
and fueled a cycle which continued to spiral downward. Often low level classes in urban
high schools start out as high as thirty and end up with less than ten students by the end of
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the year. The remaining students see the classroom as a sinking ship. They cut class more
Jennifer Benares echoed a similar concern and saw apathy and poor behavior as side
effects of placing students in lower tracks: "I really got to see how in the tracks apathy is a
characteristic even more. And the kids in the lower tracks are so immature it is ridiculous."
Apathy and immaturity are difficult obstacles to overcome. If the immaturity is dealt with
by strong restraint, the classroom can become didactic, and apathy can become the
students' mode of resistance. If the immaturity is ignored and allowed to go on, the student
teacher can lose control, and the classroom can become anarchic. Many student teachers
Julie Boswick fought the good fight but lost in the end. Her fierce determination,
however, is inspiring:
You know, I was going to turn that class around. They were going to be different.
They were going to learn more. I was going to teach them the way they had never been
taught before. I was going to get through to them God damn it. That's how I felt. But
at the end, I was going to have a break-down. I cant do it.
Julie started out the way every student teacher should start out-with fire in her eyes,
confidence in herself and a desire to overcome obstacles no one else had ever been able to
overcome. The fact that she finished the practicum is a testament to her perseverance.
The fact that she felt as if she were going to have a break-down if she continued to try is an
indication of the tremendous difficulty of teaching a basic level class in an urban high
school.
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D. Setting Priorities: The Criteria by Which High Schools Judge Their Success
On what basis is the success of a high school judged? That clearly depends on where it
is located and who makes up its population. Some schools pride themselves on the number
of National Merit Scholarship winners they produce or the number of students who score
high on the AP exam or the average SAT score. Some note the quality of the colleges its
seniors are accepted to and the percentage of the graduating class that goes on to four-year
schools. Some showcase their athletic talent and look to outstanding records of various
sports teams. Some are judged by their dropout rate. It should not be surprising to
discover that many urban high schools fall into the latter category. How urban high
schools choose their priorities was a matter of concern to some of the student teachers in
Do you work on your top level kids and get them to be really successful and create a
school that sort of manufactures a few kids who really succeed every year and hope that
the rest will kind of drift along with them? Or do you work harder at guaranteeing that
everybody comes out sort of at an equal level, and forget about the kids who are
achievers and go after the kids who are dropping out?
It's not a choice you ever want to make in education, but I suppose when it comes to
allocating resources, you're constantly making choices like that. It seems to me if
you've got a twenty-five percent dropout rate in the ninth grade, that's your number
one priority.
Robert points out a dilemma that urban high schools are facing today. On whom do
you focus the bulk of your attention? If you go with the numbers, you target the students
who aren't making it. If the bulk of your budget is spent on textbooks, material and
personnel designed to reach a broad audience, you risk teaching to the middle and
marginalizing the students on both ends of the spectrum. If you are not selective about
who qualifies for an honors program, for example, you have the obligation of working with
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eveiy child, individually if necessary, to make sure they pass. That requires the kind of
time that is not available to teachers in most urban high schools. Regardless of
philosophical rationale, budget and time restrictions may play an increasingly important role
heterogeneously grouped.
The student teachers in my study varied in their desired solution to the tracking dilemma
from immediate heterogeneous grouping across the board to an intensification and greater
refinement of the tracking system. Robert Greene reflected seriously about the
A number of those students, if they had been in my freshman academic class, would
have blossomed. And the kids that didn't do any work in the freshman basic class? Put
them in the freshman academic class. They were not going to do any work there either.
Throw them in with kids who are academically serious. Make that the rule rather than
the exception. Instead the kids who were not as skilled are put in a group with other
kids who are not as skilled, and the result is they don’t see what skilled is. They're not
good students, and so they are kept apart from good students, and the result is that they
stay bad students.
Robert's argument makes sense. If students in low level classes are exposed only to
other students with limited abilities, they never see what good students can do. In my high
school a house system was imposed three years ago. It segregated the freshmen into one
section of the building. From the onset their behavior in the corridors and at lunch was
particularly immature. Without the benefit of seeing how upperclassmen behaved, they
simply mimicked their peers, the silliest who seemed to get the most attention.
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James Ramaska thought untracking might improve the performance of some of the low
level students, but he also recognized the possibility of an opposite effect on high level
students:
I see kids in the standard level, and I know if I put them in the academic class they
would rise to that level. In the same case, I have kids in the academic that if I brought
them down to standard level class, they would get caught up in the lower echelons of
behavior and effort.
of differing ability levels in the same class. Robert Greene thought it would, in fact, be
easier:
Robert made a valid point, but he is indeed very naive in terms of numbers. Three out
of thirty is a mere ten percent. In my high school nearly thirty percent of the student
population is absent on a daily basis. Unless attendance improved drastically, that figure
One could easily say that even this figure is an improvement over the three or four
survivors in Robert's basic class, and it is. But what do you do on the following day when
the absentees return and have no clue about what is going on in class? Ignoring them will
only provoke poor behavior. Repeating the lesson will help them but punish those who
were there to hear it the first time. Assigning more advanced students to help slower
students might help, but is it right to take their time away to teach other students concepts
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they have ahead}’ mastered, and will not the amount of work covered by the end of the
Julie Boswick, however, agreed with Robert She phrased it a bit different!}’ but hit the
same target: "I can handle one or two in a class, but a whole class full of them is just like a
grease pit" Making progress in a grease pit can indeed be slippery’ business. Julie's
Although Trevor Mood}’ thought he too could teach in an untracked class, he foresaw
problems with grading, something he was already having difficulty with in a homogeneous
: "My sense is I could work with them. But at the same time, I w onder how’ you
I ! I
a kid. Do you grade a kid in comparison to the brighter kids in the class? Do you
him based on what he or she can do?" Trevor's question is one which experienced
Still, despite the difficulties that Trevor was having, Julie Boswick saw tremendous
Maybe, the academic kids have never been arrested or never been a product of a
divorced family, so when you're in social studies class where issues of your own
experience come up quite often, it's to everyone's advantage to have people of groups
together.
urban school, classes at the honors level can still be primarily white. Without
representatives from the factions who are discussed in the classroom, meaningful
discussion is limited on the basis of what people within the group perceive about people
While Julie wished to do away with tracking completely, Jack Wilson wanted to see
I would advocate the doing away of tracking but only with the incredible burden of a
support network. And it is a burden. It will require some additional monies, additional
people, but I think the end result is equality.
Jack, unlike many anti-tracking advocates, realized that you just can't simply do away
with tracking unless you provide a means of taking care of those students who fall by the
wayside. That includes support staff such as reading specialists, special needs personnel
and tutors as well as materials including computers, software and textbooks. Budget
John Bulinski who student taught in the English Department at Lane Vocational saw
altering the curriculum by carefully selecting books as a means of reaching students with
We've all got there [understanding] pretty well because The Chocolate War, which I
spent a lot of time on has a couple of different levels. I tried to get the highest level of
interpretation through, so the brightest kids liked that, and there was another level for
eveiyone else, and I tried to get everything through, and I think they all enjoyed it.
You've got to find books like that.
It is true that many novels can be taught at different levels, but what John may not
understand is that the reading level of the book is the sole determinant of whether or not a
student can get through it There is a world of difference between The Chocolate War and
War and Peace. What has inevitably been happening is that English departments in urban
high schools and to a lesser extent, suburban high schools, have been ordering books which
are classified as "high interest / low level." While teachers can demand higher level
interpretation and more in depth papers from some students, the bottom line is that the
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book is probably written at a sixth grade reading level. That does not bode well for the
Sal Cheblanc addressed this issue directly when talking about altering curriculum
requirements. Many would say that tossing classic texts aside in order to find a happy
medium is a fallacious argument, but this young neophyte was interested in a different level
of communication:
All the way through graduate school I had these college topics in my mind, and that's
just not the way it is. It is not practical to think that kids are going to be fascinated with
Nathaniel Hawthorne. I think a lot can be gained by doing practical work with some
people—not like occupational development or anything like that but getting them to
communicate in words and in writing their ideas, their thoughts.
I think that's what they need. If they don't care about Hawthorne, and they don't
care about Shakespeare, they should care about how they carry what they communicate
with others. If you don't get anything else out of school, you should learn how to
communicate.
Sal's comment raises an important question. Do you shape the student to the
curriculum or the curriculum to the student? Should we throw away "Ode to the West
Wind" and substitute it with "Gangsta Rap?" You don't simply eliminate certain subjects
from the curriculum because students don't want to learn about them. Both student
teachers and teachers often present material which they think appeals to students in order
to keep their interest. Some would argue that something is better than nothing. But that is
not enough. Mediocrity perpetuates mediocrity. Student teachers need to keep their
expectations high and not simply present material which students find enjoyable.
F. The Need for Student Teachers to be Aware of the Systemic Consequences of Changes
in the Tracking Process
Although the number of course levels varies from school to school, the criteria which is
generally used for ability grouping is based on class and/or test performance. While this
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sounds like a simple procedure, it is clearly not perfect. Many bright students choose
tracks lower than what they can handle for an easy ride. Many students who struggle
attempt tracks higher than they can handle to avoid being labeled as slow. Terry Anson
There are students who take science because they like science, and they want to learn
science. There are students who take science because they need it for college. There
are students who take science because their parents say so, and there are students who
take it because they need two years of it to graduate. Id rather track it more that way
so you know what group of kids you're working with. Allow them to choose which
one they would want to be in. I know it's rather unrealistic, but I would think that
would make the teacher's job a lot easier.
Being slotted into a course based on the criteria of one's motivation for taking that
course is a novel idea but clearly, as even Terry naively admits, an unrealistic one. The
scheduling process is very complicated; room utilization, contract stipulations and budget
limitations often take priority over sensible placement. And even if Terry's scenario were
possible, who would want to teach the section of students who take science only because
And what about the students in the higher tracks? Terry surmised that her honors level
students were quite proud of their academic status within the school and wary of how they
The kids that I have in honors level are happy to be here because they're the best here,
and maybe somewhere inside them they know if they were somewhere else, they might
not be the best. They’re very conscious of their status within this school.
Clearly an advantage of tracking is the pride in achievement and the competitive spirit
engendered in those who strive to attain honors status. Recognizing students for academic
scholarship reinforces good study habits and a strong work ethic. Those students who have
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a competitive spirit and the willingness to apply themselves to their studies deserve the
same amount of attention as those students at the other end of the spectrum. All students
need to be pushed to the limit to develop their potential; good students do not simply make
it on their own.
The satisfaction gained from working with a high level group is unmistakable;
sometimes it is critical. Julie Boswick talked about some of the reasons why:
I felt personal rewards from my academic classes at Leighton High. I had classes where
I could almost cry because we talked about something so in depth, and I felt that I really
reached them, and I need that reinforcement that Pm doing a good job.
Julie points out that reinforcement is needed by student teachers as well as students.
The worn out cliche about teaching being a rewarding career is founded on the premise
that you get something back for what you give. If student teachers give day after day and
get nothing back, self doubt and/or cynicism can negatively affect their attitude and
performance. Julie's high level class gave her the opportunity to recharge herself
At the other end of the spectrum are the basic level students. Although students in the
upper levels should serve as models and inspire similar performances from others, they
often become stark reminders to low level students of what they seemingly can never
become, and that can cement the self defeating attitude which will dog low achievers for
life. Timothy Meehy displayed an uneasiness when discussing the question of whether or
not low level students were negatively affected by being placed in a basic class:
I dont know if it places a state of mind in a kid. I don't know in this school if a kid
says, 'Tm in basic" and says it with shame. That's not necessarily something I want to
ask. I think some might be affected.
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But in some school sites the feelings of students in the lower tracks were perfectly
obvious. Jennifer Benares easily observed the pain of the low achievers at Sussex High
School:
They said, "We're the stupid kids. That's why we're not going on that field trip." They
know it, and that is hurtful. They have nothing to really look up to or live up to at all,
and if they were mixed in with some other kids with higher abilities, they would have
something to live up to, to work up to.
Through the process of induction it does not take long for students to recognize they
have been labeled as "stupid" kids. Students who find themselves in marginal groups at the
lower end of the echelon then find a common denominator to bind themselves together;
even the link of "stupidity" can become acceptable in a darkly humorous way.
Interestingly enough Peter Macelroy saw the process from a different angle. He took
decisive action in moving students to higher levels because he felt teachers had retained
There's a stigma. They go from second to third grade in these classes, and they don't
move up because they're top of the heap. They're king of the hill, and teachers aren't
going to want to move them because they think, "Hey, this kid is smart. He's good. If
he leaves I'm going to have more of these types of kids." I moved up quite a few kids
which I felt positive about.
I have observed many students not moving up a level because they were comfortable
where they were and too lazy to do the extra work in a more academically challenging
class. I have observed students not moving down a level even if the work were too difficult
because they did not want to be viewed as "basic" students. I have not, however, seen
teachers discourage upward mobility if they thought the student was capable of handling
the more rigorous course. Peter's observation may have been based on a comparison of
students within his classroom but perhaps not with those in higher levels. Many student
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teachers are often quick to criticize based on what they see in front of them. What they are
often unaware is the "big picture"; in systems with top down management the same
While the idea of an untracked school may be appealing, the problems created may be
equal or greater to the problems solved. Trevor Moody expressed anxiety about a problem
If you can create the environment and get over the discipline problems, you could push
these kids too better, but I don't know about the reading comprehension. I don't know
if someone in basic freshman English can read Of Mice and Men and get the same
meaning out of it as someone who is in academic or honors. It does bother me. I try to
push them, but there's just that reaction that they're not going to do it. Not that I think
the kids I have are dumb or anything like that; you go in knowing that they're not good
readers.
The issue of reading comprehension coupled with the issue of language acquisition are
serious factors in determining whether or not untracked classes can function. And
although computer technology has revolutionized the way the world goes about its
business, it, with the exception of software which is specifically designed to enhance
writing skills, has made the writing process more of a selection of predetermined
alternatives than a natural flow from within. Much like a multiple choice test, recognizing
a logical answer does not mean the same thing as writing an essay which reveals what you
think, how you think and how you are able to express what you think.
Jennifer Benares also acknowledged that the idea of untracked classes was good but
The behavior and the maturity levels of the ninth graders at the high track and the low
track were so different it was amazing. It would be so difficult to teach in a classroom
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where you have all different ability levels. It's a great thing that could be worked out,
but I can’t see myself as a teacher teaching five classes that are all mixed. I think it
would be hell.
Viewing one class as a microcosm of society and trying to structure it so that it contains
diversity in terms of ability levels as well as race and gender is a noble idea. Trying to
move students in that classroom along in a fair and productive way is an extremely
challenging and exhausting undertaking. Multiply that by five, and it is easy to see why
Jennifer's prediction that "it would be hell" could lead to teacher burnout and constant
turnover in the teaching force. In fact having a five to seven year term followed by a
sabbatical is one of John Goodlad's (1991) ideas which will keep urban teachers fresh.
Teaching five sections of heterogeneously grouped classes may be better than teaching
several low level classes. New teachers are often "dumped" upon with basic freshman
classes while veteran teachers often get upper level senior and junior classes. Many student
teachers are often assigned basic level freshman classes as well. And while most teachers
would readily acknowledge that basic level students deserve good teachers (and some say
they need die best teachers) very few teachers want to teach them. Julie Boswick honestly
admitted that she didn't want to teach low level classes even though she was aware of the
If they distributed it so that you're just getting one group, it would work out better
because no one wants to teach those kids. These kids deserve good teachers too.
They've just been given crap their whole life, so they expect crap. It's awful, but I also
don't want to teach them either, do I? No, so Tm just as bad as everybody else.
If Julie, who was a marginal student herself during high school, has no desire to teach
low level students, what then can be expected from student teachers who have even less in
common with their charges? The only other student teacher in my group who was a
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marginal student during high school was Chris Ristous. Like Julie he shot from the hip and
As a teacher, I don’t think that you should throw them all together. It may not be right,
but there are reasons why. Some people are just a little smarter than others; they grasp
things a little quicker than others. And then there's this cultural stuff. My parents read
tome. I was encouraged to read. These kids don’t read a lot; they never had to. I
think if you threw those middle level sophomores in with those honors, you would
really rob from those honors kids because you'd be worrying about discipline.
fact some people are not "just a little smarter than others"; some people are a lot smarter
than others, and by that I mean their ability to perform better than others. Colleges and
universities acknowledge that when they choose their incoming freshman class on the basis
of college board scores, rank in class and athletic or extracurricular prowess. They choose
people who can handle the academic requirements. With the exception of affirmative
action programs, they do not utilize heterogeneity in their selection process. Students who
do not make the cutoff end up in alternative sites such as community colleges or prep
programs where they can develop the skills which may eventually qualify them for
It seems rather hypocritical that universities and colleges which are selective about
accepting their own students should espouse heterogeneous grouping for other institutions
of learning. Although the influence of the university is strong during the coursework part
of teacher education, the practicum can diminish that influence significantly. When
coupled with his own secondary education experience, James Ramaska's perspective turned
around:
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I grew up with tracking. I always thought that was the way to go. Then we go to
graduate school, and we're told it was the worse thing you can do. Now, that I'm
teaching, I'm swinging back towards it. I'm in favor of it. Take my academic class for
instance. If I had a lot of those kids mixed up with the real behavior problems or the
lower level of my standard classes, it wouldn't do justice to both cases. I couldn't really
find a happy medium in teaching to them.
James was influenced by his university training, but when he was m the urban arena
and not merely talking about it, he reverted back to what he originally perceived was the
most reasonable way to teach. Of all my participants, however, Raymond Strathmore put
When I went in there I was thinking, like everybody from American University,
"Tracking, there's no reason for it; it's baseless, it creates problems rather than cures
them." Being at Halifax, I dont know what I think about tracking now because I know
within that classroom I had kids that were really good with the material and kids that
weren't, and that was so hard to manage. And it was tracked already! What I was
saying in my mind is, "Boy, this isnt tracked enough," which is really terrible because I
never thought that way, so at this point I'm in limbo. I was catering to the kids that
were struggling. I figured the kids at the top had it made in the shade, but they were
becoming bored and weren't listening after a while. By the time I started saying,
"Alright, let me get the people on top interested," I was losing the bottom half, and that
was the big struggle. I dont think I solved anything.
As of September, 1995, all public high schools in Massachusetts must have eliminated
the general track. How that task is accomplished is up to the individual high schools
involved. Although this mandate does not demand the end of all ability grouping, it
certainly sets us on a path heading in that direction. From personal contacts with educators
in other high schools, I have learned that many are simply retitling courses or levels without
changing content or prerequisites. My high school, on the other hand, is eliminating all
ability levels for incoming freshmen; that includes elimination of the honors program in
freshman year. In the name of fairness for all, those students at the top will be forced to
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become teachers in a collaborative setting that will hopefully raise up those students at the
bottom. Only time will tell who benefits and who suffers in the end.
CHAPTER Vm
In the 1960's in Basic Training Camps, young men who had enlisted in or who had
been drafted by the United States Army were greeted by their Drill Instructors on their first
day with these words: "There are only two people you will remember when you die: your
mother and me!" During the next eight weeks, the DI's did their best to shape the raw
recruits into battle-ready soldiers who would soon stand on the front lines next to seasoned
veterans.
Cooperating teachers also have a mission: to shape student teachers into teachers.
Although the roles of cooperating teacher and student teacher are not nearly as well
defined as Drill Instructor and trainee, the nature of the relationship is almost equally as
important. This section will examine the issues surrounding that relationship from the
While we can draw inferences about the relationship between the cooperating and
student teacher in general, we must be careful to remember that each team is unique. The
"chemistry" which exists between two people in any relationship can never be analyzed so
finitely that it can become defined. We simply observe it and collectively infer from it.
The setting in which the team works has an effect on it as well. A young married
couple who work and live in Amherst are not subject to the same pressures that might
affect their relationship if they worked and lived in New York City. And while parts of
their relationship may seem to have nothing or little to do with their environment, there is
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no way to definitively assess how much influence environmental factors play in the success
The urban high school and its students and problems are, in many ways, different than
the suburban high school and its students and problems. And even, for example, when we
view a cooperating teacher's personality trait or habit that would appear to have nothing to
do with the setting, the possibility exists that the setting may have caused that trait or habit
Only two of my participants were openly hostile to one of their cooperating teachers;
conversely only one of my participants was totally satisfied with his. The rest felt a sense
they see fit. Lack of ownership was a feeling commonly mentioned along with the
difficulty of satisfying the dual roles of student and teacher. A longing to return to the
they also harbored resentment for lack of support. Except for cursory visits, most of the
cooperating teachers stepped out of the picture after two weeks, some after two days.
Classroom management and evaluation were areas many student teachers felt they needed
help with.
When the student teachers in my study had some say in choosing their cooperating
teacher, they often sought out someone whom they perceived similar to themselves in style.
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Not having to lock horns seemed to promise to make the experience less stressful for Terry
Anson:
I was looking for someone who was close to how I wanted to do it because I wanted to
have someone to look as if I needed pointers or someone who would understand where
1 was coming from. I tried not to be drastically different so as not to send a culture
shock to the students, but I needed to do it my way or I would have pulled my hair out
and left two weeks after I was here. I have some leeway there also. I just don't go and
make my own decisions and do whatever I want. We'll discuss it.
Terry makes good sense here. It is in the pre-practicum that observations of teachers
with very different styles should take place. That kind of exposure will help student
teachers decide the kind of teaching they'd like to emulate and glean from. Whenever
possible the student teacher should have some choice in determining who the cooperating
teacher will be. In my study student teachers who were able to choose their cooperating
teachers had far less difficulty than those who had no choice in the selection.
Choosing someone he admired provided John Bulinski with a worthy role model. Like
Terry he chose a cooperating teacher who was relatively similar to him. When he referred
to her in his interview, it was always in a positive light because their relationship was stable:
That's the way I want to teach. That's probably the reason I picked her. She seems a
little similar to me. I am a little bit less compassionate to the kids. Maybe, it's because I
have been teaching a lot less time, and I didn't know them as well. That was one of her
greatest strengths. I tried to be as dynamic, but I dont think I am.
Because John had chosen his cooperating teacher and because he was happy with that
choice, he was able to successfully rationalize his lack of compassion for his students in
was had no hint of bitterness to it. John's middle class parochial background which is
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diametrically dissimilar to that of his urban students may also have contributed to the
3. A Pressurized Coke Can: What Can Happen When the Student Teacher and the
Cooperating Teacher Are Not Similar
When the styles of the cooperating teacher and the student teacher are radically
different, tension can build up quickly, especially when it involves classroom management.
Sal Cheblanc likened his cooperating teacher's style to the lid of an agitated can of soda,
It's like opening a can of coke. When the coke is flat and you open it, you're fine. In
this class someone had shaken up that can because the management had been so tight.
I'm not a person that screams. I'm not a person that blows up and says, "You know
what I mean!" And that's what they had. That's not my style. My idea is "I respect
you, you should respect me." Every time IVe said that in class, someone next to them
will say, "Yeah, knock it off"
cooperating teachers. What makes this area even more complex is the perception of what
is successful and what isn't. Sal may be perfectly comfortable with allowing a class to act
up until someone says "knock it off." But the teacher who has a class taking a test next
door might not find Sal's approach acceptable nor might Sal's cooperating teacher.
In searching for a style, Peter Macelroy deliberately went out of his way to be different
Most teachers are very passive where Fm very active, for instance, my cooperating
teacher just kind of gets up there and sits and talks from the book, whereas, I'm jumping
around yelling, sometimes singing, doing weird things, and I give more thorough
reviews.
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Taking risks is something educators do less and less of as they gain experience. Most of
the time we tend not to do those things which previously failed or put us in an
approaches which gives them their freshness and makes them appealing to students who
recognize that wonderful naivete. "Doing weird things" may not always have endeared
Peter to some of his urban students, however, who might view his antics as condescending
or demeaning.
It is not only student teachers who have to adjust to their students. Students must adjust
to the student teacher and eventually back to the teacher again. That too can be difficult as
I guess the kids had a hard time getting used to me because she was intensely one way,
and it was successful, and then I was intensely another way, and they had to get used to
me. Once they got used to me, she told me afterwards, it was difficult for them to get
back and be used to her again.
In the struggle between the student teacher cooperating teacher and college supervisor,
students often play the role of guinea pigs. When something doesn't work, they lose
ground. When classroom management is not successful, they can become victims of other
students. They have to adjust first to the classroom teacher, then to the student teacher and
If people were ill, few would choose to temporarily replace an experienced physician
with a medical student during a prolonged illness. People who do choose to be treated at
teaching hospitals are generally assigned a large team of experienced doctors and medical
residents. Students in the classroom have no choice; they are given one student teacher.
That may be part of the reason they often give student teachers a hard time.
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Sometimes the student teacher recognizes that students will react differently to the
teacher just because he or she is the teacher—even if an identical request were made. Here
Monica Pellante acknowledged the respect accorded to her cooperating teacher who had
I thought it was amazing, especially the Antigone debates. The little amount he said,
"You defend the state, and you defend the individual. Now get together in your
groups, and talk about it." I couldn't believe it. That's all he had to say. It amazed me
because I think if I had said that same thing, I would have had fifteen million questions.
"Oh, how can we do this?" It's just the way he said it, how he said it, who he is, twenty
three years. They take that in, and they listen to it. I would go with the side of the
person I knew and respected too.
respect is something that is earned over the course of time. Veteran teachers with an
earned reputation need only confirm what new students expect of them by being consistent
with that reputation—good or bad. Student teachers are pummeled with questions that
veteran teachers are never asked. It's an issue of paying one's dues.
If the teacher is very demanding, students see the student teacher as a welcomed change
and a break from the rigor of the teacher. That can be advantageous and disadvantageous.
It might make it easier for the student teacher to be liked if he or she is perceived as a
softer touch, but it also can make it difficult for the student teacher to demand the same
effort from the students. Such was the case with James Ramaska:
It was tough; the transition was tough. He is such a demanding teacher academic-wise
and discipline-wise that they saw a change to be a break from him. "This is vacation
now from him. We're not going to have someone as demanding as he is." It was hard
to fill his expectations, so the kids initially saw it as "this is a break."
This scenario puts student teachers in an awkward situation. If they chooses to be less
demanding than their cooperating teachers, they win immediate popularity with their
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students but undermine themselves as educators with low expectations. If they demand as
much as their cooperating teachers, they meet with immediate resistance and will be tested
by their students to see if they can back up their demands. If the high school itself is
structured and regimented, as many urban high schools are, anything other than a
sign of weakness.
If the cooperating teacher is intensely disliked by students, and the reasons for that
become obvious to the student teacher, the situation can become very uncomfortable.
perceived a problem:
Even on the first day she did not give them the benefit of the doubt. She was
practically yelling at the kids, telling them not to do this in class as if they already had it
in mind to do it. The kids didn't like her at all. At every point they were trying to think
of a way to get out of the class because they were terrified of her.
This is clearly not a match made in heaven. Raymond's initial reactions clearly indicate
his feelings about his cooperating teacher’s unfairness and preconceived opinions. This
was further intensified by what he viewed as possible prejudice making him even more
uncomfortable:
She was uncompromising, especially with the lower class and Hispanic kids. She was
extremely unwavering in her stance. She may have had a prejudice against some of the
Hispanic kids. She said something like, "He was Hispanic too, and he was really caring.
You just don't find that."
Raymond has to be careful. He is a stranger to the urban high school and a neophyte in
the world of teaching; but he can recognize prejudice. There is no easy way to tell
someone else that they are acting in a prejudiced manner. Defensiveness immediately
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comes into play, walls go up, and communication permanently breaks down. There are
three choices Raymond can make: 1) do the practicum elsewhere; 2) try to diplomatically
show the cooperating teacher the error of her ways and challenge her if necessary; 3)
If I were able to relax a little bit more, then I could have been creative, but I was never
able to relax because I didn't get a lot of positive reinforcement. Instead of developing
my sense of being a teacher, it just made me scatterbrained. In the end I was adopting
anything she had to say just to appease her because it gets to a point in your student
teaching where you're just saying "I want to pass this thing, and HI worry about my own
style later. And this person is the one who is going to tell me if I pass or not." You
want to satisfy that need even if it doesn't really coincide with your own feelings on the
matter.
Raymond's remarks support the finding that student teachers work in a finite range of
required classroom activities that result in limited control by the student teacher and
limited interaction with students other than what is related to the task at hand (Tabachnik,
Popkewitz, & Zeichner, 1979). Although Raymond did complete his practicum, he paid a
high price. Not only was he still resentful at the end of his practicum; he had decided
urban teaching was definitely not for him nor any teaching, in fact, for a little while. He
incompatible placement.
Perhaps the ideal balance occurs when the student teacher is able to recognize and
accept similarities and differences in style and learn to work around them. Jennifer
Benares was quite clear in what she saw and was able to develop a close rapport with her
She and I are alike in some ways and very different in other ways in regards to our
teaching. I envied her ability to talk about things. She was much more a disciplinarian
than I was. While she did on occasion do some group work or dialoguing, there wasn't
as much as I would have liked. She was very much into vocabulary. I wasn't, but in
the end I decided this is the one aspect of the class that I'm going to keep the same
because the kids need that consistency. Tm not as gifted or skilled as she is, so I was
going to have to be doing some different things.
Jennifer was wise enough to know that she had to provide some continuity by retaining
vocabulary work even though she wasn't excited about doing so. Many urban students
who have been in structured environments throughout their grammar and elementary
education, particularly those at basic levels and those whose native language is other than
English, are most comfortable when they know exactly what is expected of them. They
like vocabulary because it is finite; they can learn it by rote and succeed with it. They are
conversely generally uncomfortable with open ended questions. It is interesting to note that
most of the cooperating teachers in this study were identified as strong disciplinarians and
good talkers. Since Jennifer acknowledged she did not share those strengths, she decided
4. Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone: What Happens When the Cooperating
Teacher Cuts Down Observing Time
How often should the cooperating teacher observe the student teacher? Of the nine
participants in my study who were rarely observed, only one was happy about it. The
pattern which emerged was less than a week of observation before shifting to sporadic
drop-in visits. Jennifer Benares was on her own after only two days: "She pretty much
was there in and out all semester, but she wasn't there very much. In the beginning, maybe
the first couple of days." Much has been written about teacher burnout in the urban high
school. Having a student teacher allows the cooperating the teacher the freedom to come
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and go as she or he pleases. Putting the student teacher in control quickly in order to build
a strong rapport is advocated by many cooperating teachers; but assuming the student
teacher is doing fine and walking out alter a mere glimpse can leave the student teacher
feeling abandoned.
Another typical pattern involved the teacher having the opportunity to do other things
under the guise of letting the student teacher get his or her feet wet as Trevor Moody
indicated: "We would talk, but I think it was a lot more hands off. By the second week,
she would be "Okay, I have to run and do this." The cooperating teachers mentioned in
difficult schedule, the added burden of a student teacher provides an adequate rationale for
Perhaps even more disconcerting is when the student teacher is not told what he or she
is going to teach or who the cooperating teacher is going to be. Peter Macelroy was left in
the dark until the last minute: "The thing that I regretted was he didn't give me a definite list
of what I would be teaching and who I would be working with. He just gave me some
And to make matters worse Peter ended up with an entirely different class. "I had no
support. I had to prepare every single night because I thought I was doing Geography, and
I ended up not getting a Geography class." Whenever possible, student teachers need as
much preparation time in advance as possible. The situation is unfortunately true for
teachers in urban high schools as well. Because of the incredible transiency rate in many
large cities, classes often can not be scheduled until September. Most veteran teachers
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have built up an arsenal of materials through the years to get them through such times of
stress when classes are as large as forty and there is an inadequate number of textbooks.
Student teachers, however, have no such arsenal and many struggle as Peter did.
The normal reaction of most student teachers when asked the loaded question, "Can
you handle the class?" is of course "Yes." But overconfidence and false pride can lead to a
practicum of uncertainty and anxiety. It's a realization which inevitably comes too late as
Sink or swim. That was me. The only way you're going to learn is if somebody
watches you and says, "Nope, you're making a big this, this and this." Your first
reaction is, "Yes, I can handle it," and then you don't have anybody watching you.
Ultimately that's not a good thing.
One methodology employed in teaching babies to swim is to throw them in the pool;
remarkably most of them float to the surface and eventually become good swimmers. That
may work with many babies, but it doesn't work with adults; throw an adult who cant swim
into the deep end of a pool, and you will cause permanent trauma. Student teachers may
have had some previous training, but putting them in the front lines of an urban high
school class and then walking away may cause tremendous anxiety for some of them.
Without the support of the cooperating teacher, the student teacher is left to the mercy of
That absence of support; a system like that can suck you in, but at the same time it
makes you grow up real fast. You have to be independent. You have to remember that
you are a student. It's the first time you're getting up in front of a room. And kids are
beautiful in their ruthless honesty, and they will tell you exactly how they feel. That can
be real tough.
Trevor's second and third sentences are almost an oxymoron. Having "to be
independent" and having "to remember you are a student" seem to say you have to be self
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sufficient, but it's okay to make mistakes. Urban kids are street smart, and Trevor is right
on target when he describes their "ruthless honesty." It's impossible not to take things
personally, and yet somehow student teachers have to rise above their errors.
In the nature documentaries the mother bird somehow manages to push the babies out
of the nest at precisely the right time, and the tiny birds magically are able to forage for
themselves. Not so with Trevor who continued to bemoan making decisions he felt
unprepared for:
I remember a couple of times asking her about grading. She would say, "Well, I don't
know. You've got to learn that for yourself." What the hell do I know? I've never
done this before. I wasn’t lazy. I was scared. Tm not "Take that bull by the horn."
I've got to work through stuff. I understand that we have to learn everything for
ourselves, but knowing that we're students. You know a teacher's job is to guide people
through things. I could have used a lot more.
Trevor's lack of hesitation in wanting more guidance points to a need to expand the
prepracticum into a forum where he could be more of an apprentice learning the tools of
his trade rather than simply an observer. Perhaps team teaching during the prepracticum
student teachers are older than the high school students they teach, they are students
nonetheless. Without adequate observation by their cooperating teachers, there can be little
or, at best, meaningless reinforcement. Just how important that reinforcement is can be
seen in Jack Wilson's comment: 'Tm a little disappointed in that sense, and maybe it's my
own insecurity. Maybe Tm looking for some positive reinforcement, a pat on the back
saying That's a good idea,' and 'You're not a complete screwup."' Jack was one of the
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most independent and mature participants in my study, and even he acknowledged the
5. Just Let Me Be: The Happy Medium between Too Much and Not Enough
Observation by the Cooperating Teacher
For the student teacher who is blessed with self confidence and a clear sense of
direction, being left alone may be a desirable situation. Chris Ristous saw the practicum as
a proving ground for himself and preferred to face the challenge alone:
He came twenty minutes at the beginning of the year and didn't come back, so it was
my class, but that's the way I wanted it I didn't want someone watching my every
move if I had a problem. I ended up doing the grades, and with the exception of one
girl, I was within three or four points on everybody.
Chris, the cocky and brash upstart from the West Coast, clearly reveled in being in a
power position. He had the confidence to survive and the street smarts to avoid situations
where he might be judged negatively. But Chris had also conned his way into having a
cooperating teacher who was a previous friend and was therefore willing to give Chris free
Just when is too much too much? When the cooperating teacher remains in the
classroom most of or all of the time, some student teachers feel as if they're in a fishbowl.
There is more than enough pressure being in front of students for an entire period; the
I'm a lot more at ease when there's someone not watching me. I like it if 1 can go to
someone and talk to him after the class and tell him something happened. But I don't
know, for some reason, just when someone's breathing down my neck, it kind of makes
me nervous.
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Urban students, in particular, understand power. People who are nervous are not
perceived as powerful. That eventually affects what will happen when the authority figure,
in this case the cooperating teacher, leaves the room; it’s testing time.
With the presence of one of her cooperating teachers in the classroom, Julie Boswick
never knew for whom the students were behaving or misbehaving for that matter. That
can lead to a sense of powerlessness: "I never really felt like they were looking at me for
behavior management because she was there." Julie missed the opportunity to discover
whether or not it was truly she in control; the constant presence of her cooperating teacher
Yet James Ramaska, who disliked the fishbowl effect, sometimes preferred the
presence of the cooperating teacher in his room precisely because the students did behave
better making it (at least in his eyes) easier to teach: "He's there if I need him, and he
comes in once in a while, but it's easier discipline-wise when he's there because they still
sense his presence. They're afraid of him, and you can notice the difference."
A vicious cycle can be created when the cooperating teacher remains in the classroom
too long. Being observed constantly can lead to edginess; edginess can lead to mistakes;
mistakes can lead to negative criticism by the cooperating teacher; negative criticism can
lead to more observation which then causes more edginess for the student teacher as was
the case with Raymond Strathmore: "I got a lot of negative feedback from her because of
the way she is. I had a lot of problems with that because I was always someone that
needed the encouragement, and I still am." Positive feedback is important; the mistakes
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made by Raymond were due not only to the teacher's constant presence but to the kind of
In my study only one student teacher, John Bulinski, enjoyed being observed daily, but
that observation was apparently nonjudjmental and therefore nonthreatening: "She was
there every day; "What happened? What do you think of this?" Every single day. I think
it was great. She didn't say, "You shouldn't do that." That's the difference between helping
and getting in my face." John's cooperating teacher seems to be the exception to the rule.
A good mentor discusses but does not judge during the learning process-at least not on the
early stages.
For Terry Anson the presence of her cooperating teacher was a two-edged sword. Her
desire for help and/or recognition was countered by her desire for independence.
Terry's honest admission of her inability to make up her mind seems very much like that
of typical teenagers seeking independence from their parents: the 'Tm perfectly capable of
doing it myself' stage to the "I hate to admit it, but I should have listened to you" stage.
The dilemma for many cooperating teachers is whether or not they are jeopardizing the
student teacher by severing the umbilical cord too early. In any classroom and in particular
The necessity of watching oneself constantly when being observed by an evaluator can
be discomforting, but not having the cooperating teacher there at the times when the
student teacher does something outstanding is like not having anyone around to hear the
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tree when it falls to the forest floor. Is there a noise? Bill Colleta made this apparently
clear: "I felt much more comfortable when she wasn't there because then I wasn't watching
myself, but on the flip side is when I was doing well, and I wanted somebody to say, Tiey,
nice work.’" Unfortunately as Bill learned, you cant have it both ways.
The idea behind curriculum development is to have a format, a set of goals and
objectives carefully spelled out to meet the needs of the student population. Some
should undergo as little interruption as possible during the transition from the teacher to the
student teacher and back to the teacher again. Continuity is the bottom line. There is a
good deal of leeway in how the curriculum is interpreted by teachers, however, and within
my study the range which was allowed my participants extended from total freedom to
absolute adherence. Their attitude towards their cooperating teachers was directly related
Jennifer Benares was elated with the amount of freedom she had and the openness of
It was great because she started off being a mentor, and towards the end we were giving
and taking and sharing. It worked out really well. That's the key ingredient in an
effective student teaching experience. You have to be given freedom, flexibility to try
everything out on your own.
Flexibility is extremely important when the students you are teaching are different than
those you have been with for the majority of your life. To expect student teachers to deal
with urban students in the exact same manner the cooperating teacher does is unrealistic
and unfair. Jennifer's camaraderie with her cooperating teacher is evident of a relationship
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that emphasizes sharing. It is also a relationship that gives Jennifer the opportunity to fail as
curriculum. Although she had some say in how she presented material, she felt confined
It was all laid out for me. I wasn’t establishing a curriculum; I was executing her
curriculum. She liked not having to teach that class, but she used to always view my
tests with such scrutiny. "That wasn’t hard enough, you're too easy." I got a little
leeway on how I taught the required curriculum on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but the
basic three days a week, she decided how it was going to go.
The issue Julie brings up is not as clear as it appears to be. Should student teachers
have to demonstrate that they can execute someone else's plans before they can develop
their own? In any major organization there are standard operating procedures which are
set up to ensure proper delivery of service. In urban high schools there are building rules
involving curriculum, discipline and responsibility of personnel, and there are classroom
rules which are set up by the teacher. As a guest in the classroom, is not the student
teacher responsible for adhering to those rules? Do student teachers have a right to expect
that they should be able to establish their own rules, whether they be related to discipline or
curriculum because they are temporarily in control? Even in teaching hospitals discretion is
sometimes granted under circumstances that do not fall under normal activities. In such a
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sensitive area what is wise is that both student teacher and teacher agree to the rules before
There are choices student teachers must make when they are asked to follow a
particular set of guidelines. They can accept; they can question; they can refuse. The
latter is clearly a poor choice and can abort the practicum. The former is the easiest choice
although it can lead to the student teacher feeling guilty or hostile if he or she does not
believe in what is expected. The middle choice, questioning, must be handled tactfully and
sensitively or it can sabotage the relationship between the cooperating teacher and the
student teacher.
Sal Cheblanc questioned and was rebuffed: "In one of the classes I was told to stick to
the curriculum that I was handed. I thought a lot of these kids needed help writing, and I
was basically told not to do it. 'Go with the grammar lesson, stick with it.’"
This case is similar to other case studies which show that student teachers are denied
Buchmann, 1987) and is an example of something that should have been straightened out
before the practicum. Sal will leave the class in a short time, and the teacher must pick up
where he left off. If either the teacher or the school administration feels that grammar is
the way to go (urban systems which are under financial stress often use older grammar
based texts), then grammar is the way to go. Sal can still make some suggestions for future
curriculum changes, but those must be reviewed and approved by the department faculty
Sometimes the student teacher has to develop a sixth sense. It can save a great deal of
She sets the way—what I have to teach and what I am going to do. She leaves a lot of
room for me, but she has set requirements. Even though she says, "You don’t have to,"
I know that she would want me to present this.
James is sensitive to his cooperating teacher’s needs. He is willing to use his intuition in
knowing what the cooperating teacher wants without having to confront her, and he is
willing to deliver. That is the beginning of learning to work as a team within a building, a
concept that is difficult for student teachers to understand when they primarily work in a
one-classroom setting.
Jack Wilson was uncomfortable imposing his own expectations on students who would
eventually have to meet the expectations originally imposed on them by his cooperating
teacher:
I thought that it would be an injustice for me to use them as guinea pigs to the extent
that I wouldn’t fill the requirements of what they would be expected to keep, so I
compromised myself. I'm a little disappointed with myself. HI be honest.
Jack's self disappointment is understandable, but the course of action he chose may
have been the best course for his students. Intuitively Jack understood something all
student teachers need to understand—that the most important party in the teaching or the
student teaching process is the student. An apprentice carpenter can miss-hit a nail and
damage the wood around it. It can be replaced. Student teachers, however, are working
with live subjects. While it is important that student teachers explore as many
methodologies as possible, it is the student's learning that takes priority. Working with
inner city students with whom he was unfamiliar, Jack recognized his own limitations in
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terms of experience and bowed to the wishes of his cooperating teacher; that was a wise
decision. If either the cooperating teacher or the student teacher is unwilling to agree on a
In certain Christian doctrine, purgatory is defined as a state or place where those who
have died in the grace of God suffer for a certain time for their sins. In education
purgatory may be defined as student teaching-a state where those who have been trained
in the grace of teacher education programs suffer for a certain time for their inexperience.
Even the term "student teacher" is an oxymoron, and the juxtaposition of the two functions
It's hard to ever feel like it’s your own turf when you’re a student teacher. Right away
you're under somebody else's wing, and the students know it, and the other teachers
know it. It’s like being in purgatory-that in-between. Teachers still call me a kid. The
students know you're just learning. Some expect you to be perfect like a teacher, and
some think they can get away with anything and know they can abuse you in certain
ways. It's never your turf. I never felt like it was my turf.
area which is recognized by others as a separate entity. Owning a turf gives one a sense of
power and a commitment to protect it. Even a Cocker Spaniel will defend its turf against a
Pit Bull. Monica was aware of how nebulous her turf really was, and that is why she
described it as purgatory. Like the students in her class, she too needed to know what the
limits of her turf were or, for that matter, whether she owned a turf at all.
"I act like a teacher, I look like a teacher, I think like a teacher, I feel like a teacher-but
fm not a teacher." That is the dilemma many of my participants found themselves in. The
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feeling of subjugation lurks beneath the surface as is evident in this comment by Raymond
Strathmore:
They were my classes, but I wasn't steering them in my direction. As far as authority of
the room, I didn't have any problems with that, but as far as what I was doing in the
classroom, that was really steered a lot by her (cooperating teacher). The lessons I
came up with after a while were catered to her more than they were catered to me or
the students or anyone else.
teachers. What works for one teacher may not work for another no matter how foolproof
or simple it appears to be. There are too many variables which play a role in the success or
failure of any approach to give it full praise or blame for what occurs. But Raymond also
needs to consider the responsibility of his cooperating teacher before castigating her for
Like any parent that nurtures a child, a teacher feels protective and possessive of his
charges. Giving up a class to a stranger with very limited experience is not an easy thing to
do. It takes a long time to establish a successful rapport with students. It is sometimes
difficult to re-establish that rapport when the student teacher leaves. Letting go completely
is sometimes an impossible task for some teachers. Such was the case with Julie Boswick
whose cooperating teacher left her feeling ownerless: "Mrs. Brown is very reluctant to give
up her ways of doing things. She never really relinquished enough control for them to
think I was boss." Julie's confidence in her own ability to direct the classroom is partially
responsible for her frustration, but not every student teacher shares that confidence.
Monica Pellante, who took over an honors class but found herself well over her head,
asked and was allowed to team teach the class for the last few weeks with her cooperating
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I know I must have come off not great, but he's a hard act to follow. Fm not
embarrassed to sit in that class. I thought it might be embarrassing to sit in the class
afterwards, but I'm not. I kind of felt like he never really wanted to give it up, and he
shouldn't; it's a treat. To have the bright and shining faces of twenty six students
reading, looking at him saying, "We want to learn. We want to discuss."
Monica's willingness to team teach in that class after being unable to teach alone is a
credit to her desire to succeed and an indication of her humility. It also provides support
for my recommendation that all cooperating teachers should consider team teaching with
their student teachers during the prepracticum or the initial part of the practicum as a
gradual way of giving up ownership but still providing some of the direction.
8. The Good Old Davs: The Tension Caused bv the Duality of Being a Student
Teacher
In most stages of life, people look back to previous stages as "the good old days" when
things were easier and more carefree. So too did Terry Anson who not only felt the
dichotomy between being a student and teacher but yearned to be only a student again:
I don't feel comfortable with that, honestly. Sometimes I have problems relating to the
students just because I forget that Pm in that teacher role now-not in the student role.
Right now I would still prefer to be in that student role, and I'm having a tough time
working that one out.
Terry is in a rut caused by twelve years of being educated in what Freire referred to as
the banking system. What she was used to as a student—being a sponge who soaked up the
knowledge of her teachers—was far more comfortable for her than having to be not only
the progenitor of the knowledge but the facilitator of a more egalitarian relationship with
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her students than those she previously experienced. In some cases that yearning is not even
conscious. Monica Pellante found herself lapsing in and out of the two roles:
I'm not always thinking of it. I'm still thinking like a student sometimes. A lot of times.
Most of the time. It's a constant struggle because your brain wants to think like a
student. It wants to be passive. It wants to listen.
Monica interestingly chose the word "passive" to illustrate her impression of her student
mindset, another reminder of the banking system. James Ramaska also suffered from the
tension of balancing the roles of student and teacher. The practicum is like on the job
training for apprentice air traffic controllers. The responsibilities are immense, and the
It's difficult. It's almost like you're not one solid thing. You're getting tugged at from
both ways. You're expected to be this teacher who knows everything that should go on
in school, and yet you're still learning. And then you're being tugged at from the college
to still be a student while you're supposed to assume the role of teacher. I told the kids
in my class, Tm a student teacher. I'm still a student. Fm just like you."
James's last comment indicates the identity problem which exists among many of the
student teachers in my study. James is not just like his students, but he feels as if he is.
The problem may be that we infantilize our student teachers by giving them too many
masters. Pulled in many directions, Raymond Strathmore often lost sight of his function.
Tm trying to figure out just why I wasn't happy. I was catering to a teacher. I was
catering to myself. I was catering to students. I was catering to a supervisor and
anyone else that came in and just observed on a day to day basis.
The answer to Raymond's problem may lie in the following proposal: During the
prepracticum, student teachers first observe several teachers and then team teach with their
cooperating teacher and participate in all facets of preparation, presentation and grading.
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The following semester the student teacher does his student teaching for one full semester
and gets paid a stipend Funding for the stipend would have to come from university
grants or through legislation as most urban locations could not afford it. The practicum
would have to be set up so that it had no impact on the loss of jobs for other teachers. The
cooperating teacher would act as a mentor and be given time and professional development
points to consult with the student teacher. The student teacher would be evaluated in the
same manner as the rest of the teaching staff. The student teacher would teach three
periods per day, observe for two, meet with the cooperating teacher and perform duties
Only two out of the fifteen participants considered their cooperating teacher or one of
their cooperating teachers (eight had more than one) incompetent. Some student teachers
do not have a choice of locations or teachers for their practicum. That can result in
feelings of anxiety, helplessness and even hostility. Julie Boswick ran into the problem on
My first day of observing it was chaos. He was just flipping out worksheets left and
right. None of the worksheets related to any theme, anything. I ended up helping kids
because I just felt so bad for them. He didn't really explain anything. I felt like the kids
were not learning anything in here. This was busy work, this was not right, and he was
mean to them too.
Teacher burnout is not a myth, and teacher burnout in an urban location may be an
even larger problem. Goodlad (1991) had suggested that urban teachers be retrofit at the
end of every five or seven year period. Without a chance to revive and renew, some urban
teachers can be worn down over the years to the point of simply putting in time and even
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developing bitterness. In this case the adage, "never judge a book by its cover," can be
nullified by another adage, "where there's smoke there's fire." The following conversation
between Julie Boswick and her cooperating teacher illustrates what can happen to some
urban teachers after years in the trenches. Although the situation is humorous in a bizarre
sense, Julie's cooperating teacher shows signs of paranoia, sexism and vindictiveness—not
He said he had to talk to me, and I said, "Okay." He said, "Watch your back!" And I
said, "What?" He said, "Don't turn your back for a second. Something will happen."
I said, "What will happen?" And he said, "Let me tell you a little story, dear." And I
said, "Okay." You know-hearing him while apprehensive. This is my first day, my big
debut, and I wanted to come on strong because if I didn't, the whole thing might be a
disaster the rest of the year.
"I used to turn my back, and they threw batteries at me. Batteries, big batteries, and
I couldn't catch who it was," he said, "I had a whole plan."
I really thought the guy was psycho. I mean, he had a whole plan over how he was
going to catch the culprit.
"I knew it was coming from the right side of the room. I pretended that I was
reading, but I rigged the book. And out of the comer of my eye, I'd be watching to see
where the batteries were coming from. I just want to tell you, you dont want
something like that to happen to you. Dont turn your back for a minute. You wouldnt
believe how good it felt when I finally nailed him. I saw him reach into his bag, pull the
battery out, and I said, Ah Ha!" He must have stayed up nights thinking of how he
was going to solve this problem. Those were his words of wisdom for the year. This
guy is sick. And I was biting my cheeks while he's telling me this story. I'm going to
die laughing.
But as Julie points out here, the ultimate victims of this incompetent teacher are his
I think he's giving them negative vibes about who they are. "We dont get the good
teacher. We get this guy who gives us movies. He must think we're idiots. We're not
worthy of anything." He should at least preface his classes with "Please, dont take it
personally. You're not worthless; I am."
Julie was one of only two student teachers in my study who identified one of then-
thinking of Julie's students in that the best teachers in their schools or at least the most
experienced generally taught the upper level classes. The lower level classes were often
The other incompetent cooperating teacher was described by Chris Ristous in less
complimentary terms. Still the results are the same, and Chris's astute observation
involving the lengthy amount of service remaining in the teacher's career spells trouble for
Bob Dumphy is kind of an asshole. He's very antagonistic to the kids. He doesn't want
to be there. He complains that he's not making enough money for what he does. The
guy's forty-eight. He's got a long way to go. I knew he could be abrasive, but then I
saw him five straight days in a row. This guy's a jerk.
While I think Chris's description of Bob Dumphy makes him an exception to the rule, I
have often heard the comment within my high school that urban teachers are not paid
enough for what they do. The common pseudonym for salary is "combat pay." In order
to collect a decent percentage of his pension. Bob would have to teach until the age of at
offered.
Gaining perspective is important. This piece of advice offered to Julie Boswick by one
I used to tell him, 'Tm not learning anything from these people," and he used to say,
"You know Julie, I don't mean to criticize you or anything, but these people have been
teaching for twenty years. And you should be able to learn something from them. You
could learn something about why they are the way they are by observing them. You
cant just discount people like that."
I had a tendency to do that. Tm new, Tm enthusiastic, Tm up on the current
teaching methods, and I feel like saying, "Get the hell out because you dont know what
your doing!" I really felt like that was a little bit too bold. I realize that now.
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While it has been my experience in teaching education courses at the graduate level that
many student teachers do have inflated egos and clearly feel superior to many of the
teachers they observe because they feel they are "up” on current methods while teachers in
the field still use the same old stuff, it is also my opinion that no student teacher should
negative practicum can sour student teachers for a very long time or possibly change their
Although the basic function of the college supervisor, working with the student teacher,
is essentially the same at most colleges and universities, the depth and width of involvement
Preservation of the student teacher's sanity and the practicum site's sanctity became the
incentive were the byproducts of observations. The college supervisor had limited
influence in the choice of instructors and classes. Most made a conscientious effort to
Denigration of the role of college supervisors was prevalent among a smaller number of
my participants. In most cases of this type the college supervisor was a graduate TA
enrolled in a doctoral program who had little to no teaching experience in an urban high
caused broken appointments and cursory visitations. The lack of meaningful involvement
caused some student teachers to disregard any advice that was proffered by the college
supervisor.
2. The College Supervisor as Broker: The Tension Involved in Balancing the Interests of
the Student Teacher, the University and the Urban Site
In some cases college supervisors decide which sites are appropriate for their student
teachers. That decision is based on their knowledge of the site and their perspective of
how well the student teacher can adapt to that site based on his or her strengths and
weaknesses. Terry Anson was discouraged from selecting her urban choice based on her
My professor at Lane University tried to discourage me from coming here. Her opinion
of me was that I do what is necessary to get by, and that's all I do which is what I
showed her in the class that I had with her. She was just forewarning me, "Are you
sure you don't want to go to another school? You can go there if you want, but are you
sure? Maybe, you would be better in an easier more relaxed environment."
What this strongly suggests is that Terry's college supervisor perceived the urban
environment as more difficult and tense than a suburban environment. It also suggests
that, in the supervisor's eyes, only those students who are willing to do more than what is
expected of them will survive. The effect on Terry was a strengthening of her resolve to
succeed in the urban high school where she chose to do her practicum. The college
supervisor may have been using reverse psychology in trying to suggest that an easier
environment might be better suited for Terry. She may also simply have been warning
Terry of the level of difficulty. Either way Terry chose to stay knowing she had to prove
to her supervisor as well as to herself that she could succeed in an urban environment.
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Negotiating placement in any high school site is not easy, but choosing placement in an
urban high school requires consideration of additional variables that are unique to this
environment. Lawrence High School, for example, is located in the heart of the downtown
area as is the case with most urban high schools. There is no parking lot for teachers.
Those who arrive earliest vie for spaces on the streets nearest the high school. Some
choose to park in a municipal garage several blocks away for a fee. Others take their
chances. More than two dozen teacher's vehicles have been stolen and countless others
High School because of its rich diversity, I would be remiss if I did not mention the
possibility of property loss or damage. In fact during the third quarter of this school year
one student teacher's vehicle was stolen twice. Those are fairly grim statistics to consider
when considering placement. That also includes the selection of an appropriate college
supervisor who, although only on location sporadically, faces the same risks. Two years
ago one college supervisor, after a brief discussion with some faculty members in the
teachers' lounge, fled the building without conferencing with the student teacher she had
observed!
The condition of the physical plant, room utilization (which might cause itinerancy),
availability of texts, AV resources, computers and adequacy of library are all factors which
need to be considered by the college supervisor in finding a student teacher who can
handle a particular urban site. Attendance, discipline and grading issues which are
discussed elsewhere in this dissertation also present unique difficulties which must be
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There is no clear answer concerning who has the ultimate power placing the student
teacher. Not only are the college supervisor and cooperating teacher involved, but
sometimes department heads and administrators are involved as well. Sometimes college
supervisors can advocate for their charges only so far or risk the possibility of losing the
site. Placing student teachers is no easy task, and treading the line of authority must be
done with care. This college supervisor attempted to right a wrong but found herself on
the losing end of the battle involving the placement of Julie Boswick:
My college supervisor was a bull. She said, "They can’t do this to you. You can’t have
four different preps. By law they can only give you three. You're a student teacher.
It's not fair, you can’t do it." But after talking with everybody, nothing changed.
Julie not only ended up with four preps at Leighton High School; she also had to work
with three cooperating teachers. Sometimes a cooperating teacher who is selected to work
with the student teacher is not perceived as an appropriate choice by the college supervisor.
In Julie's case a historical basis proving the ineptness of one of her cooperating teachers
had already been established. Despite her efforts, the college supervisor was unable to
effect a change. The department head's philosophy further complicated matters and
She was totally pissed off that I was getting his classes. She said, "Every year I bring a
student teacher here, and every year they’re put in one of his classes. The student
teacher doesn't learn anything. They're put in a circumstance where the class is out of
control. From day one the student teacher has a really tough role to play in there."
And she really went in there and pitched saying she didn't want me to have him for a
cooperating teacher.
The philosophy of the department head was that you have to have a lot of respect
for someone who has taught there for so long. And if he's having a bad personal time,
you have to respect that. He tried to help the situation as much as he could without
pulling the guy out. His rationale was that if there's an option to get a student teacher in
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there for one or two of his classes, get them in there because those kids are going to
learn more with a student teacher.
Julie's dilemma was irresoluble. The alternatives were staying or leaving. With no time
left to find another site and with a desire to teach at Leighton High School, she opted to
stay. Julie’s college supervisor was also put in a compromising position. She could only go
so far before damaging the relationship between the high school and the university.
Although Julie survived her ordeal, she had to undergo severe emotional stress because of
the incompetence of one her cooperating teachers and an imbalanced teaching schedule.
When an urban site develops a pattern of problems, the university can even become
overly sensitive about the student teachers who are placed there. During his prepracticum
at a different site, Jack Wilson had been asked to critically evaluate the teachers he had
observed in what he thought was a confidential journal. Unfortunately the contents of that
journal were shared with the teachers producing a political furor. The college supervisor,
forced to act in the best interests of the university, was then doubly fearful of placing Jack
They said, "What school did you pick?' I said, "Leighton," and they said, "Can you
work with people there? Are we going to have a problem with you?" I said, "This is a
rhetorical question. I know what answer you're looking for, and I'm going to give it to
you. Yes, I can work. I’ve never had a problem in my entire life with other people." I
was even asked, "Do you give respect to teachers?" It was so patronizing and
insulting, and I really felt like I wanted to laugh in everybody's face, but I swallowed my
pride, and I said, "Yes, I do. There's never been a question."
Jack wisely chose not to lose his temper. At his practicum at Leighton High School, he
proved himself to be cooperative and effective. He did, however, remain bitter about the
treatment he received from his college supervisor during his prepracticum at a clinical site.
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3. loo Little. Too Late: The Inexperience and Time Constraints of Some College
Supervisors
supervisors' time constraints because of heavy loads. This was particularly observable
when the college supervisor was a teaching assistant as was noted by Chris Ristous:
He came in seven times. He dropped the ball on us a little bit too. He's in the middle
of his doctorate. He'd say, "Seven people-I have to do this—I have to do that." He'd
make appointments and then forget them.
Chris's remarks support the finding that student teachers denigrate the role of their
college supervisors (Goodlad, 1990). Chris's college supervisor was a teaching assistant
responsible for seven student teachers, he was unable to meet the needs of his student
teachers. His inability to keep a consistent schedule of observation coupled with his lack of
not only urban but any secondary experience reduced his credibility and therefore his value
to the student teachers he worked with. These conditions, when coupled with the
temporary nature of their position, results in the powerlessness of teaching assistants who
The inevitable comparison of the college supervisor to the cooperating teacher was
often made as was the case here with John Bulinski. Although the results of that
comparison may be valid, the circumstances of time and place make it unfair:
A little more help from my teacher at Lane University would be better. I didn't get
nearly as much input from him as I did from my cooperating teacher, but I think the
stuff I got from her was probably a lot better than the stuff I would have gotten from
him anyway. He was there for the class and then for maybe five minutes afterwards.
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John's remarks are reflective of all the participants in my study whose cooperating
teachers worked closely with them. They support the finding that student teachers
disregard or minimize the teachings of their university instructors and attribute their
about the value of his college supervisor's advice is warranted at least on the basis of the
paucity of time spent on post observations. While the overload of cases per advisor
accounts for much of the rushed treatment, I surmise the inconvenience of driving into a
large city, trying to find a parking space, worrying about car theft or vandalism and
as well.
Being observed is, for most of my participants (and for most of the teachers in my
Terry Anson was concerned with the nature of negative feedback based on what she
graduate student receiving negative feedback from another graduate student, she was
She was always very critical and allowed the rest of us in the class to be very critical
too, but we didn't really mind that because we were learning. But when we went to
start teaching, we all of a sudden went, "Oh my God, what's going to happen here? Is
she going to be like she was before?" She told us she wasn't going to be, but we didn't
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believe her because we didn’t think she knew how to be any other way. The first time
she came to see me I was rather nervous because I was afraid of what type of feedback
I was going to get, and that carried over to me being afraid of having my cooperating
teacher give me feedback too. I understand the negative feedback, and I take it as
criticism, but at the beginning I was too afraid of it.
There are differing opinions among educators concerning the nature of the criticism we
were genuinely concerned about not stepping on toes and being sensitive to the feelings of
students, most of the students in my education classes wanted to know what needed to be
improved and literally told me they were tired of being pampered by their previous
instructors. Despite what Terry said above, my feeling as an urban educator is that all
standards and that they learn to accept constructive criticism in the spirit in which it is
given.
Generally the college supervisor gives the student teacher a chance to settle in before
coming to the site to observe. Not so in Julie Boswick's case. She realized the reason for
She wanted to make sure that I was going to be all right. I thought it was a little
strange. I said, "Why are you going to evaluate me on my first day? I don’t think that’s
really fair. No one else is going to be graded on their first day." She said I just want to
observe you. I don't want to evaluate you on your first day." But on reflection, she
probably wanted to make sure that I survived.
Julie's college supervisor, although well intentioned, made Julie's first day a traumatic
experience. As viewed earlier in this chapter, Julie's placement with a historically inept
teacher was a matter of great concern. Her college supervisor was probably trying to
protect her and to make sure that Julie would be able to handle a class in an urban setting
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that was already out of control. Instead she turned Julie into a basket case who rightfully
questioned a first-day observation. Yet Julie eventually came to rely on her. Knowing
how difficult the practicum can be, the college supervisor can become a friend and a
She used to tell me that I did great. I always did really well in all of my observations.
She used to write, "She can do it, she can turn the class around. I know she can. She's
trying so hard." She used to tell me, "Just dont exhaust yourself trying to do it. Do the
best you can." That class was wicked hard. She said, "I felt bad for you. I'm going to
get you a drink." She said, "You’re driving yourself crazy with this class."
Julie's college supervisor was aware of what can happen to a student teacher in an
urban high school classroom where attendance problems alone can squash the enthusiasm
of the most buoyant neophyte. Exhaustion from preparing and correcting can happen in
any environment, but the frustration of not being able to accomplish objectives day in and
day out because of factors beyond the student teacher's control such as excessive
absenteeism and language acquisition make the urban environment a far more formidable
challenge.
The effect of having an outsider observing in the classroom can also have positive and
negative ramifications. Students can crucify or beatify their student teacher by adjusting
their behavior on observation day. If the student teacher is liked, the results are generally
positive as was the case with James Ramaska: "I notice when the professor comes in from
Lane, the kids make an effort to behave. They can equate to that student mentality:
wanting to do well for your teacher." While this kind of loyalty is not particular to an
urban site, it is important that urban students can develop an affinity for their student
Another positive side effect of observations is rising to the occasion. Being in the
spotlight brings out the best and sometimes the worst in people. Fortunately James
Ramaska found being observed an incentive to perform at his best. His follow-up
question, however, indicates the temporary nature of his effort. "When the professor's
everyday?' but I dont." Inadvertently James stumbled onto one of the ways urban
teachers increase their longevity, and that is pacing themselves. Stepping it up a notch
every day would result in burnout. High but reachable expectations for students and
university and practicum site. As I see it the college supervisor may provide the dialectic to
the cooperating teacher, both parties supporting the student teacher through the perspective
provided by their individual philosophies. In order to increase their credibility and their
influence, however, college supervisors should have some experience in secondary teaching
and have a mentor load that allows them to visit frequently and to be available to their
charges. Part of the responsibility of the college supervisor is to explain to the cooperating
teacher and the student teacher what the university or college would like included in the
student teaching experience and to help work out a plan which is satisfactory to all
concerned. The high school site must listen to the needs of the student teacher through the
advocacy of the college supervisor as well. If university training is to have any lasting
effect on student teachers, it will be the responsible college supervisor who makes sure that
it is properly utilized.
CHAPTER DC
most difficult problems they had to cope with. On any given day absent rates ranged from
twenty to fifty percent, and that became problematic when student teachers attempted to
put into practice the cooperative learning methods they had learned in graduate school. In
There is a marked difference between attendance rates in urban and suburban areas.
That rate is largely determined by the amount of parental support from the home. In an
area such as Lawrence, for example, that has a transient population, many students live
with uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, relatives or even friends. Finding an adult who is
On parent/teacher night at North Andover High School, a suburban high school, I have
parent/teacher night at Lawrence High School, an urban high school, many teachers stand
in the corridors hoping to see two or three parents for the entire evening. Those that do
show up are generally the parents of students who are doing well. This lack of interest
which is mostly caused by ignorance or fear rubs off on students. Without parental
encouragement or guidance, many students are chronically tardy, and many cut classes or
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urban high school classroom today, I would answer "excessive absenteeism." In urban
high schools with absence rates as high as thirty percent, many of my participants felt a
impossibility. Laboriously constructed lesson plans went by the wayside as bodies shuffled
in and out of the rooms indeterminably. Makeup exams became the rule rather than the
exception.
became embittered when they could not set up a project longer than one period in length
and even more embittered when one out of four students was not present for the original
demonstration. Creating a different makeup exam and arranging for a mutually agreeable
time almost never worked. Embitterment eventually led to mundane teaching and makeup
Only those with experience in urban high schools understand fully what excessive
absenteeism means. At Lawrence High School, for example, it is not uncommon to have
as many as six-hundred students absent and/or tardy on any given day. For student
teachers who were brought up in the suburbs, the impact can be too great to cope with.
Generally the larger the high school, the greater the problem. Because of the constant
influx and egress of students, accurate records are difficult to keep. When high
absenteeism is the rule rather than the exception, it is common not to see students for
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several days. Sometimes students drop out, and teachers are not informed for days as was
the case with John Bulinski who did his student teaching at Lane Vocational: "It wasn't rare
for someone not to be in for a week. It happened more than a few times. Someone was
once absent for a week, and on the fifth day, I talked to her guidance counselor. The girl
was gone."
John's frustration is shared by many urban teachers. Although the shock of excessive
absenteeism wears off, the hopelessness of the situation remains. Several initiatives in my
high school have been attempted: all have failed miserably. Teachers volunteered to call
homes, for example, but only those who spoke Spanish were able to get through. Many
students lived with relatives or friends, and most of them came from homes with an
absentee father and several siblings. Often the mother was at work and could not be
reached. Older brothers and sisters would frequently cover for the truant student.
Tied into the problem is the issue of welfare. Eligible students have to be registered in
the school system in order for their parents to receive welfare benefits. In my school
system a student is declared inactive after being out for ten consecutive days. Many
students simple come in every tenth day in order to remain on the active roles. Many
students are over eighteen years of age. Legally they can sign themselves out any time they
desire. The problem does not only exist in basic level classes.
Even in the upper level classes, absenteeism can be a problem. In the urban high
school, no class remains unscathed by the epidemic of absenteeism as Terry Anson noted:
"In the freshman honors class there are six students who are absent frequently. There are
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eighteen students who are supposed to be in there all the time." Having one third of a class
absent on a daily basis can rattle even the most organized student teacher. Blaming oneself
When there's a problem, blame has to be placed somewhere. That urban students are
excessively absent is acknowledged by urban educators. Why they are absent gives rise to
many possibilities. The distinction between cutting a class and staying out of school is also
significant. Bill Colletta found students showing up more once he took over the class. He
attributed that to the level of interest he generated: "A kid is not going to cut your class if
you're exciting in the classroom. If you're boring, nobody is going to want to see you or
Bill may have been right. A new face, a younger person, an energetic student teacher
can have that kind of effect. But that is not always the case. Robert Greene went a step
further after blaming himself initially. His investigations showed that students were simply
Initially I thought, "Hey, maybe it's me," and then I found out the kids weren't going to
any of their classes. The kids are not showing up at school. The kids are not going to
class every day, and there's not a whole lot teachers can do. What makes the kids not
want to go to school? They’re not successful at it. Everyone likes to do what they do
well. If kids are in a situation where they cant do well or they don't do well, then
they're not going to want to be there.
But sometimes all the rationalization in the world does not work. In attempting not to
be boring, Trevor Moody tried a variety of approaches, especially those that were
only made things worse. That kind of negative experience can cast the lecture method in
There were kids that I never saw in my class. Just names on a list. Just never came.
Twenty-five percent—sure. I ended up saying to myself, "You’re lazy," getting down on
myself. "You never try anything innovative." But you try group work. You try to get
people responsible for things. On the first day, all these kids are here, and they take
part. Then the second day, the new kid comes in, and he has to get into that group.
Then the one kid who’s done all the work doesn’t show up when you do the
presentation. I didn't know how to pull that stuff together. I did group work once, and
I never did it again.
Trevor clearly felt the hopelessness which many of my participants experienced. With
cooperative learning one of the primary methods covered in education classes today,
student teachers are even more likely to find absenteeism an absolutely impossible obstacle
to overcome. Sometimes the odds are so overwhelming that student teachers simply give
I know who's going to be there, and I know who may be there, and that's frustrating
because you give up. How many times can you tell them you're going to have a quiz,
and then they're not there for three days?
As indicated here, hopelessness can degenerate into embitterment, even in the short
time span of ten weeks. The practicum should be a learning experience filled with hope
and joy. What is truly frightening is the long term effect on teachers who remain in the
urban setting for their entire careers. Learning to survive under these kinds of adverse
conditions is essential.
One of the main problems with excessive absenteeism is how to handle makeup exams.
When to give the makeup becomes problematic. Expediency becomes a practical means of
getting the exam made up; the simple truth is that you have the student in front of you.
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Trying to arrange mutually agreeable makeup time becomes difficult at best, and it
basically punishes the student teacher for the actions of the student as Jack Wilson noted:
You give a test one day, and the next day you have five kids come back who weren't
there. That’s troublesome because they're missing what you gave them, and technically
you shouldn’t give them that test during class time, but when do you give it? When
these kids are filled up during the day or are just unwilling? You know you have them
there. My attitude is why not just let them go with it.
But what is Jack teaching them by allowing them to make up a test during class time?
Short term solutions are often short sighted solutions. It's easy to say "I have no choice"
and use that as a rationale for doing something that instinctively feels wrong. When James
Ramaska gave a makeup exam during class time to students who had been absent, it
negatively affected all the other students in class. That is clearly unfair and
counter-productive:
It's hard because you have kids coming and going. Who's not there, who needs to catch
up on the notes, and then it's really hard to give a test because a lot of kids have been
absent. I can never give a test on a day and know that all the kids will be there. Today
is a makeup day, and I probably have more kids taking the makeup than I did the
original test. And it disrupts. The kids that have been in class and took the test on
Friday are not going to be able to do much today because of the kids taking the
makeup.
What are we saying when we punish students who did the right thing in order to cope
with those who did the wrong thing? Peter Macelroy decided arbitrarily not to give
makeup exams for those students who cut class. Although this policy would not have
worked for students who simply chose not to come to school (they are protected by the
school's official makeup policy), it did make it easier for him to deal with class cutters:
Absences pose a problem because when I wanted to do group work there were kids that
were absent all the time. I'd want to give a test. I'd have to give tons of makeups
because kids wouldn't show up. My philosophy was if you skip the class, you get a
zero on every assignment, whether it be a test or homework. The first test I gave, half
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the kids skipped thinking, "Well get a makeup test, or well get the same test." I gave
them all zeroes. They knew the policy.
As clear as Peter’s policy is, however, it too can be compromised by forces beyond his
control. A note from a sympathetic assistant principal, for example, can undermine the
efforts of a student teacher. In a large urban high school there can be several assistant
principals and noticeable differences in the way each handles student offenders.
School policies which protect student offenders can also contribute to the undermining
of a student teacher's authority. In my high school, for example, students who are
suspended in-house are provided with work from their teachers. Students who are
suspended from school can not be held accountable for missed work or missed exams
because they were forcibly prevented from coming to school during that time period.
Students who are excluded from school are provided with home tutors free of charge.
With those kinds of opportunities, it is no wonder the absentee rate is so high. Schools of
education need to be aware of these factors and prepare students to cope with them long
before the practicum begins. Without preparation student teachers revert to trial and error
One methodology Bill Colletta chose to utilize was factoring in attendance as part of the
grade. How closely (or loosely) this methodology was watched by the cooperating teacher
There were kids who were very good students who did all the work. They’re smart, but
they wouldn't come to class thirty percent of the time. So what do you do? You want
to fail them because they're lazy, however, every single thing that they turned in was A's
or B's. I took them a grade down, but I gave them significant warning that that was
going to happen.
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For every rule there is a loophole, some which are advantageous to students and some
to teachers. In many school systems absenteeism can not be factored into the grade; in
others there are extremely finite rules. Educators who prioritize individual performance on
some type of evaluative tool rather than focusing on (or at least including) collective
understanding achieved through active participation in group activities only add to the
dilemma. Hypothetically test scores should be low if a student is absent a great deal; in
reality that does not work. Street smart students often sign up for low level classes which
are far too easy for them. They show up for exams and do major assignments and achieve
passing grades with veiy little effort. One way to offset that strategy is for the student
teacher to allot twenty-five percent of the grade to daily participation using a cumulative
point total. These too are ideas which student teachers must be exposed to before
Coming from a totally opposite point of view from Bill's, Jennifer Benares chose to
ignore the absentee policy at Sussex High School altogether because she thought it was too
harsh. By following her own conscience, she failed to realize that she was jeopardizing
every teacher who followed the policy. This kind of behavior is not uncommon among
seasoned faculty members, but the results of it are the same-unfair labeling of teachers
who follow school rules. The adage of "a chain is only as good as its weakest link” applies
here:
There was a twenty-five percent absent rate in the basic class, and there were some
students that I saw maybe four times in my fourteen weeks. Iam supposed to take
absences into mind when Tm giving grades. Policy says five absences, and you
automatically fail. I felt that five absences wasn’t very many for a term. What I would
do if they Fad over five absences is bring their grade down a little bit, but I didn’t want
to fail someone for being absent.
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policies are precisely the reason why many policies do not work. Although I applaud those
who are unafraid to express their discontent, I am opposed to those who choose to use
their own discretion in terms of which policies to uphold and which to ignore. Changes
must be made through legitimate channels. Well intentioned neophytes who take this
stance during the practicum can eventually become long-term arbiters of school policy.
Faced with the inevitably of the situation, James Ramaska opted to push on and make
the best of a bad situation. Whether it’s called lowering expectations or refining the
YouVe just got to try to find a way to still make progress. Today I will have kids do
something which will be similar to what I wanted to get into, but it wont be the full
blown thing that I wanted to do. Ill have to do that tomorrow.
When you have to meet certain requirements, it's tough. At the very least James is
fostering a positive attitude towards making progress; that will serve him well during his
career. Being realistic is the key to survival in the urban school. Even within the relatively
attitude and came to the conclusion that students must ultimately be held responsible for
their actions:
I now know that everything is open to change, and my great lessons that I plan will be
completely screwed up and come out awful. In the beginning I was feeling like-"Well
this many kids aren't here. I'm not going to go through with this." Towards the end I
started saying, ''Well if they're not here, they’re not here, and that's that. I'm going to
cover the material, and if they miss something good, that's too bad."
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It all comes back to haunt them when they're failing all their tests and not knowing
what's up. That's something that students have got to learn to take responsibility for.
They have to be personally accountable for that kind of thing, and I'm not going to
spend hours and tons of effort and energy making up for them what they missed when
they weren't in school.
Jennifer finally realized that student teachers cant be all things to all students. Giving
students carte blanche to make up a test is giving them a license to make up excuses for the
rest of their lives. If we want students to become responsible adults, we have to teach them
The absentee issue is one that can not be ignored by teacher educators. One of the
skills that student teachers need to develop is how to adapt to sudden fluctuations in daily
attendance. Part of the student teacher's portfolio should include related backup plans
which can be put to use should the lesson become impossible to accomplish. If cooperative
learning is to be even minimally successful the student teacher must also be taught to
identify responsible students and place them strategically in separate groups as key players.
The student teacher's absentee policy should be clear and consistent and in line with the
school's policy. Deviations from this policy will cause it to fail miserably. A safeguard
the family should be built on. Students must be aware of this policy from day one and
adhere to it for the rest of the year. Consistency and fairness are the keys to coping with
all of my participants took at least one course loosely entitled "Measurement and
Evaluation," most found their training inadequate and abandoned many of the principles
For most of my participants, grading was a dilemma. Early in the practicum many
student teachers spent endless hours trying to grade subjective tests and writing
assignments. The real difficulty, however, involved the issue of failing students who, for a
myriad of reasons, did not achieve a 65 average. Compassion for children who had been
brought up in poverty and ignorance, particularly if their first language was not English,
prevented many student teachers from assigning failing grades. Some of my participants
who originally refused to fail anyone eventually modified their stance for students who put
passing grades to students who could not read or who chose not to put in the necessary
effort would only perpetuate mediocrity, reward indolence, and burden the next teacher
who inherited the problem. Their sense of self righteousness spared no one except for
those students who had legitimate medical documentation. In an urban high school,
however, the line between what is right and what is fair is nebulous at best.
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The number of variables which go into assigning a grade to a student makes the process
uncomfortable and inexact at best. In this section I have grouped the student teachers who
agree on one basic principle: if you try, you pass. What differentiates them are the reasons
they provide which hinder urban students from making the grade. Julie Boswick focused
on the difficulty of grading students whose first language was other than English:
I pass kids who put in effort. If kids do all their homework and participate in class, are
genuinely trying, I’ll pass them. Maybe that’s wrong, but I don’t have that much belief
in tests, especially in a school that's made up mostly of minority students where they
might have a problem with English. Maybe I'm soft, but in my classes I have kids who
don’t test well.
For those of us whose native language is English and especially for those of us who
have only a fleeting exposure to another language it is difficult to understand the thought
process of students whose first language is other than English. They read the question in
English, translate it into their language, think about it in their language, translate it back to
English and attempt to write their answer in English. There are debilitating factors that
must be considered: 1) what is lost in the translation from English to their language; 2)
what is lost in the translation from their language to English; 3) what is lost in the transfer
of their thoughts to writing; 4) what is lost because of the amount of time it takes to go
Many of my participants wanted a level playing field for their urban students. For some
the only way to level that field was through adjusting grades arbitrarily for those students
whose first language was other than English. But this decision left them uneasy. Is this
process fair to English-speaking students? Is it fair to bilingual students who can function
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well in two languages? Does it give those students who struggle a false sense of security
and set them up for failure down the road? If the final product is poorly written or even
quality in it?
The difficulty of grading urban students is not caused solely by language acquisition
problems. Because of the poverty level that they live at, many urban students work after
school and on weekends. Some students are mothers or fathers and have parental
I’ve been told to fill in zeroes for everything that was missed, but I try to give them a
break because I know that a lot of them have kids of their own. A lot of them work
until midnight every night, and I empathize with them as long as they put forth an
honest effort. Why do you want to kill somebody because they have a bad day or a bad
week? We’ve all had them.
Time constraints on students are not unique to urban high schools. All students have to
family and work obligations. But there is a huge difference between those above and
below the poverty line. Urban students from poor families do not have the option of
choosing whether or not to work. My participants were faced with the dilemma of failing
participants had to choose between what was fair and what was right. What is fair may be
judging all students by the same standard. What is right is may be to take into account
While many of my participants focused on specific variables that cause students to fail,
As a teacher it's not my job to fail somebody; it's my job to teach them, and students
will fail themselves by die simple standards that the school has set: not doing their work,
missing too many days. As long as a student comes and tries and does work that is at a
level that shows that they've tried, and maybe I'm being too liberal, they're going to
pass.
Interestingly Jack questioned whether or not he was being too "liberal." Part of his
doubt stems from the dichotomy between the "simple standards that the school has set" and
work that "is at a level that shows that they have tried." Jack fails to see that despite his
insistence that his job is to teach and not to fail (he doesn't have to because "students will
fail themselves"), it is he who arbitrarily decides what does and does not constitute an
effort that merits passing. While some students may need this help to boost their self
Because some students are cognizant of their shortcomings, it can be helpful to promise
them a passing grade if they put forth a credible effort. Otherwise they might give up
before they even give themselves a chance to pass the class. But promising that can also
encourage excessive absenteeism among students who know they can pass the tests without
the benefit of class time. James Ramaska tried to solve both of these problems while still
being aware of the necessity of justifying the grades he gave to his cooperating teacher:
I gave them the expectations that if they came to class and they did the work and they
behaved, they would pass, no matter what they did. If a kid came to class and was right
on the borderline of failing, I gave them a D. I had kids that were out thirty times, but
when they took a test, they got an A, and then they got a D or a C on their report card,
and they wondered why they got that. It's tough to balance everything and then justify
the grades to your cooperating teacher.
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James rewarded students who showed up and behaved with a passing grade regardless
of the quality of the work. He also rewarded students who scored high on tests with a
passing grade regardless of the number of days they were out (some even expected higher
grades). Having taken these measures in light of the considerations discussed above, James
Justifying the grades to the cooperating teacher sometimes forced student teachers to
fail students they would have otherwise passed. How much leeway in grading was granted
to student teachers by their cooperating teachers was a significant factor in the grading
process. Jack Wilson was forced to adhere to the criteria set by his cooperating teacher:
I've actually failed a couple of people in class that met my expectation but didn't meet
the expectation of the cooperating teacher I was working for. He had assignments that
were weighed so heavily that if students missed them, they were going to fail. They
missed them, and I had to fail them, and I really didnt have a choice.
Having had to struggle through the issues of how to grade urban students fairly and
having come up with a rationale he could live with, Jack was now forced to fail some of his
students because of someone else's criteria. This again points to the need for extensive
meetings between the cooperating teacher and student teacher before the practicum so that
Differing expectations caused problems beyond the immediate circle of student teacher
and cooperating teacher for one of my participants. Peter Macelroy was criticized by
fellow department members for giving tests that were too easy. He felt the other
department members were jealous; they felt he was buying popularity. In terms of grading,
he made the following comment: "I loved grading a test. I loved seeing the result. I would
write comments, and the kids would feel great because they were getting B’s and A's on
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tests.” Interestingly enough he mentioned only the students who were successful on his
Student teachers should also know beforehand about the amount of support their urban
high schools provide for students who fail. Because Jack Wilson saw no such support
system in the school he was assigned to, he refused to perpetuate the problem:
Are there provisions in the system to address what that student is lacking or deficient in,
and if there's no provision, I think it would be criminal to send a student back into a
class after failing him to face the same situation. There's no provisions for that student
to address his deficiencies. If I fail him, I am continuing to perpetuate mediocrity.
For many students appropriate support can make the difference between dropping out
or staying in school. If remediation is not provided, the problem is never addressed, and
Perpetuating mediocrity can also be accomplished by passing students who have not
achieved a grade of 65. How often have we seen reports on high school graduates who
cannot read, write or perform simple computations? By assigning grades on the basis of
effort rather than performance, are we not shortchanging students and discrediting the
value of a high school diploma? Feeling sorry for students is not an acceptable reason for
You still have to grade, you still have to evaluate, you still have to show them how to
improve because if you let them slip by, if you give them a higher grade because you
feel sorry for them, they will not improve, and that's really what you want.
John's statement that students will not improve by giving them undeserved grades
deserves serious consideration. It falls in line with the larger urban issues surrounding
welfare. Like many welfare recipients, struggling students may never break free of the
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pattern of receiving something they did not earn. Some of my participants became
increasingly conscious of this problem during the latter stages of the practicum.
grades but still maintained the bottom line: "I would say, grade more to the student, but I
do feel that is very different than just kicking a kid along who really cant If that kid can’t
"You've got to give him the "F" is strong language. What was left out is "even if you
don’t want to." How do we best serve the urban student? By the end of her practicum,
Jennifer Benares realized that assigning students a deserved "F" might be more helpful in
I know now that Tm not going to ruin their lives by giving them a failing grade. I know
now that to help them at all is not to just slap a grade on something for effort. There's
got to be more than effort there.
Without fair and specific grading the student cannot distinguish between what is good
and what is mediocre. Jennifer's worry that she might ruin her students' lives by giving
them a failing grade is rather ironic. It is precisely by got giving them a failing grade when
they deserve one which will establish an immediate pattern of self delusion, unrealistic
D. A Grading Metamorphosis
Trying to weigh all the considerations involved in grading urban students can make this
experience overwhelming for student teachers. By putting too much emphasis on this one
responsibility, they can create enough pressure to affect their other responsibilities
negatively. Jennifer Benares eventually became aware of the difference between being
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meticulous and being realistic in terms of efforts and time restraints. With the advice of
I would read them all, and I would think about them, and then Td make marks in pencil
so I could erase them if I had to. I had a grading sheet criteria and a scale, and I wanted
to make it very clear to them what and how I was evaluating. Of course in the end they
didn't care how they got there. They said, "You write too much when you give us back
papers."
My cooperating teacher said, "You’re going to drive yourself to a grave if you
continue to do that." Later on I didn't take evaluating and grading to heart as much as I
did in the beginning. It was not going to make or break this kid's chance of college. I
did take into consideration what I knew about each kid. I knew the people who could
take some criticism, and I knew the people that couldn't.
Somewhere between the extremes of compassion and self righteousness lies a place
where the student teacher and the cooperating teacher and the university can agree on basic
principles of grading. Discussed openly and honestly before the practicum begins, the
anxiety caused by the problems involved in grading urban students can, at the very least, be
reduced
CHAPTER XI
position of authority—is how to handle discipline. Any time rules are imposed on people,
they resist. How that resistance is handled determines whether or not peace or chaos
reigns. It is commonly thought that dogs sense fear in a human being and react negatively
to it. Urban students who are used to the streets likewise sense fear in teachers, particularly
new or student teachers whom they perceive as young and naive. For some student
teachers, maintaining discipline in the urban classroom is the hardest part of their job.
"This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you" is the classic line
accompanying the picture of a stem father about to administer a spanking to his son's
bottom. The message implicit in this illustration somehow escaped the bulk of my
participants. It was, in fact, through subterfuge that many consciously deceived themselves
into thinking that discipline was simply an annoyance that could be ignored. Many openly
admitted that they were not disciplinarians and had no intentions of ever becoming
disciplinarians.
could not come to grips with when and how to administer discipline. By waffling they sent
a clear message of indecisiveness to students who took full advantage of the situation.
Some in this group acknowledged the desire of students for structure and their penchant
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for testing the limits when limits have not been imposed. Some participants in this group
threat. Produce a martyr, and everyone knows you mean business. A small number of my
participants followed this procedure and achieved success. Even some participants who
fell into the previous two groups talked about the probable effectiveness of making an
People in authority have only as much power as other people are willing to grant them.
Even the policeman is beaten up by those who choose not to respect the uniform.
Policemen rarely deal with thirty to one odds; teachers do it every day. Controlling a class
is a difficult task because most students who openly disrupt the classroom are seeking an
audience, and many students love to see the show. While one-on-one confrontation may
The urban classroom offers a special challenge. Most of the student teachers in my
study and most of the teachers I know who work in suburban systems have a preconceived
idea about the violent nature of urban students. When they see, for example, four hooded
young African Americans heading down the corridor towards them, they are afraid; the
unconscious, is enough to make urban students suspicious, edgy and powerful. Some take
full advantage of that situation. I offer and then comment on the following real incidents to
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illustrate what happened when four of the student teachers in my study attempted to
Although John Bulinski was not physically attacked, it is clear from his initial comment
and from his numerous references to this incident during his interviews that he was
Eddie Dumbrowski-ni remember that name for a long time-physically challenged me.
He really was a problem. He wouldn't talk in class, wouldn’t even look up, wouldn’t do
anything. Then he started getting disruptive. A few days later I asked him to do
something, and he got up and said, "I want to beat you! We all want to beat you up!"
Then I did my intimidating voice and said, "What do you think you’re doing?" I wrote
him up, and I sent him down.
The following incident involved a nineteen year old student who was repeating his
freshman year for the third time. A known troublemaker, he had managed to use his street
smarts and his size to intimidate many of his teachers. Peter Macelroy decided to confront
him; fortunately the student backed off at the end but not before alarming the student
One scary circumstance was when I gave a nineteen year old student an "F" grade. He
stood up, came towards me, didn’t run, walked towards me and said, "I'm going to pass,
aren't I?" I said "No, I'm not going to pass you. Fll talk about this with you after class.
Sit down." He didn’t sit down. 'Tm not sitting down if you're failing me." I said, "Billy,
listen I don’t want to have a problem with you. I think we can talk about this like two
civilized adults," and he wouldn’t move, so I said, "Fine, if you're not going to move,
Tm not going to make you move, but I can have a vice principal come down and talk to
you, and maybe hell help you move.
He sat down and after class, he came towards me. I thought he was going to hit me
because he had his fists clenched. Two of the guys in the class stayed there, looked at
him like, "Don’t even think of it," and I said, "Guys, thanks, I can handle this with Mr.
Marrero. I appreciate your help." "Are you sure, Mr. Macelroy?" "Yeah I can handle
it."
Monica Pellante was "toyed with" by male students. Pulling her hair was considered by
her assailant as nothing more than a macho prank. He at first denied it, then admitted it
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and then simply walked away. She was left angry, stunned, stripped of her self confidence
I was in the hallway trying to get my students into the classroom, and the brother of one
of my students pulled my hair, then denied it, then said he did it. Then I asked him to
stay, and he walked away. Nobody likes being thought of as a joke. That's something a
fifteen year old does to a fifteen year old girl. What's that say about my authority here,
my presence? To me it doesn't say much.
Raymond Strathmore confronted a student who was behaving erratically in the hallway
and reported him to administration. What Raymond said to the principal in a later
conversation indicates his fear of retaliation and his anxiety over taking decisive action:
I was talking to the principal. He said, "Okay, I found out about the situation. Dont
worry about it. He's a known drug dealer. We think he might have been high at the
time. You did the right thing." And I said, "Are my tires going to be slashed
tomorrow? What does this mean for me?"
The first two incidents involve the testing theme. I surmise that Eddie, whose initial period
of silence and deliberate lack of involvement foreshadowed trouble, threatened John in order
to see his reaction. Billy, who had advanced his career by successfully intimidating other
teachers, was doing the same thing to Peter. If Eddie and Billy had meant what they said, they
would have followed through; they didn't. The hair pulling incident was in fact a playful
macho prank gone bad. The boy walked away because he knew he had overstepped his
bounds. Raymond's worrying about having his tires slashed is indicative of the preconceived
notions he entertained about urban students. While all of these incidents merit concern, none
Balance-in almost every endeavor in life finding balance is the key to success. In terms
of discipline finding the balance between maintaining order and maintaining interest becomes
I ran into discipline problems quickly, and that was tough. They’re a very rowdy bunch
of kids. They can’t stay still, they can’t keep their mouths shut, they can’t stay in their
seat, and that just drove me nuts, and I didn't know how to keep them quiet. I tried to
make the lessons more interesting and include the students in discussion to get them all
to pay attention, and that worked. They all paid attention, but they got almost too into
it. Everyone was screaming and yelling out answers at the same time, and they were
arguing over who was right and who was wrong, and then I wasn’t in control anymore.
Leighton High School, where Terry did her student teaching, is a school of tremendous
diversity. There are cultural differences which contribute to the noisiness. Years of
observing E.S.L. classes have shown me, for example, that Latino students tend to be
highly emotive and Asian students relatively quiet. Factors like these need to be considered
What constitutes acceptable behavior in the urban high school of the 1990's? When
compared with behavioral standards that were expected of them during their primarily
suburban schooling, many student teachers are not sure where to draw the line. Changes
in dress, language and culture, particularly for people who are unfamiliar with the terrain,
can cause confusion. Jennifer Benares had a difficult time judging what was and was not
acceptable behavior:
Eventually the students figured out that ’’Miss Benares is not going to send people to the
headmaster." The only thing that I felt strongly about was that it was important that
they don’t speak over each other. And they would speak over me often too. The
disrespect is just overwhelming.
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Once her students knew she would not follow through, Jennifer was indeed in trouble.
When she could not enforce "the only thing" that mattered to her, she handed over control
At AA meetings, members stand up and start with the following words: "My name is
-, and I'm an alcoholic." It is said that recognizing the problem is the first step in
participants might have stood up and said, "My name is-, and I'm not a disciplinarian.
This section contains comments from student teachers who acknowledged they had a
problem with discipline. Recognizing that problem may indeed be their first step in solving
it.
also admitted having a problem knowing when he should apply management tactics:
If Tim had done his practicum at a suburban high school, would he have had an equally
difficult time pulling the trigger? My conjecture is that Tim's inability to be a disciplinarian
stems from his fear of how urban students would react. He knows how suburban high
schoolers would react; he was once one of them. Fear of the unknown is always greater
time leaving the student teacher frustrated and non-productive. Using the metaphor of a
I couldn't teach in that class. I had to take care of discipline, and then I couldn't seem to
get to other things. Many teachers said, ’’Just read to them. They don’t want to learn.
They don’t want to be there." I couldn't give up on that group. There's so much energy
there if I could just tunnel it. I just didn't expect the constant discipline thing I had to
deal with. That threw me off.
"Just read to them. They don't want to learn" is poor advice probably coming from a
teacher who had suffered urban burnout long ago. It is precisely that babysitting mentality
that convinces urban students that education is meaningless. All of my participants were
excited about teaching and, at least initially, brimming with optimism. In many cases
discipline problems disrupted even their most carefully tailored lesson plans and
Non-productivity not only stems from lost time but also from the unwillingness of
student teachers to be open and flexible because of the fear of losing control. "All
discipline and no play makes Jack a dull student teacher" might apply in the case of Monica
Pellante:
I just really like to have fun with what I teach, but it's so hard to have fun. Fun comes
to me when there is comfort and security, but if I am stuck in an awkward position or if
I'm unsure of things, then I close up.
"Closing up" is precisely the thing not to do when faced with behavioral problems. It
sends an "I cant cope with you" message to urban students and causes even more
problems. Juvenile misbehavior should be dealt with swiftly and consistently. Subtle
Disciplinary measures are created to punish those who break the rules, but sometimes it
is the disciplinary measure which creates the misbehavior. When urban high school
students are treated as if they are elementary students, they begin to behave in a like
fashion as was the case with Monica Pellante: "The basic class would get mad at me and
tell me I treat them like they were in elementary school. Then I would have to think about
There is a clear difference between punishing students and humiliating them. Urban
students expect to be punished; in fact some desire it as a means of establishing their limits.
But humiliating them by treating them like little children needles their pride and puts the
When some students were so uncomfortable that they had to tell Jennifer Benares her
It became such a problem that the kids were starting to say, "Miss Benares, why don't
you send him to the headmaster? Miss Benares, you have to yell more. You need to
be more strict." The first time that it happened I felt pretty badly. I definitely sunk. I
said, "Oh God, I know this is a problem." It was really tough to keep them down. It
was noisy, and I always got complaints from other people.
The theme is reiterated again and again: students want discipline, but if you set the
rules, you better keep them. Allowing students to break the rules only confuses the issue as
Raymond Strathmore stated: "Surprisingly a lot of kids said, *you should have disciplined
us more.’ That was a shock to me because I knew that I was a little laid back. I was
Like Jennifer, Raymond was already aware that he had a problem controlling his
students. It's almost as if they were waiting for someone to say "you've got to take
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control." According to Raymond Strathmore, the reason why students ask for discipline is
to provide them with structure-to know where the boundaries are: "All kids like structure.
The reason why they press the line is because they want to know where the limits are."
There is a new device on the market for dog owners in the suburbs. It's an invisible
electric fence. A wire buried underground creates an electric barrier which shocks the dog
when it attempts to leave the property. It works-but only after the dog has tested the
perimeter at several points and learned where the boundaries are. James Ramaska
ultimately realized that setting the boundaries was not enough. Students need to find out
I said, "This is it—right here." They tried things. They try to see how far they can
push you—to see what you actually will do. Are you going to give detentions? What
kind of work are you going to give? What are you gonna expect?"
Students have a right to know what to expect. They do not simply learn by osmosis.
They expect rules, and they expect teachers to enforce those rules. Many of my Hispanic
students have told me that in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic teachers are very
strict, and many use corporal punishment. These students often do not know how to
handle the relatively large amount of freedom they are given in American classrooms.
Student teachers must be prepared to fulfill the expectations of their urban charges.
One of the major pitfalls student teachers can fall into is rationalizing their inadequacy
nature of discipline itself rather than to blame themselves for their inability to control their
students.
Although Monica Pellante initially spoke about her difficulty in finding balance, she felt
a need to absolve herself from the problem by stating that discipline was boring: "I was
trying to find a way to find some balance between keeping order in the classroom and not
being a hardass. The hardest thing with discipline is discipline. I find anyway that
discipline is a bore.
This is precisely the same logic that led to the comment that students did not want to
learn so why bother teaching them. It's easier to let behavior slide—as long as you're willing
to sacrifice your academic integrity and the respect of your students. After dismissing
discipline as boring, what next? Perhaps grammar or equations or the table of elements or
historical dates? In an urban classroom nothing should be boring, but everything should be
consistent.
In a similar situation Terry Anson, who had experienced serious discipline problems in
her classroom, simply passed off the discipline issue as annoying. Although she states the
I like challenges that make me think. The challenges with classroom management just
annoy me. I haven't really seen or taken it on as a challenge. If I could rearrange it so I
could think of it as a challenge, I wouldn't hate that part of it so much.
How many graduate students have fallaciously said "I don't want to teach at a middle
school or an urban school because it's not much of an intellectual challenge. I want to get
into my subject." But teaching is not about taking; it's about giving. In order to give, you
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have to maintain order. It's a challenge well worth facing. The limited time span of a ten
week practicum, however, allows some student teachers to avoid meeting that challenge.
Although Jennifer Benares was concerned with the discipline dilemma at the beginning
of her practicum, she eventually found a way to solve it; she simply decided not to take it
personally: "I realized that I was just going to kill myself if I continued to take it
personally." But how else does one take it? It was far easier for most of my participants to
criticize the teachers they observed than to recognize faults in their own teaching.
Another means of excusing oneself from providing adequate discipline is not wanting to
classist, many of my participants went out of their way to become "buddies" with their
Imagine what would happen if every teacher in the school opted not to be the "bad guy?";
I earned the respect that I needed not in the same way a traditional teacher would have.
It took a while, and they did walk all over me on certain occasions, but they knew I was
a person, and they liked Miss Benares as a person.
They may have liked Miss Benares as a person, but I surmise they didn't respect Miss
Benares as a teacher. Jennifer's need to be liked was far more powerful than her need to
be effective. While understandable her decision is still an injustice to her students and to
her profession. If earning respect the way a "traditional" teacher would means maintaining
control of the classroom, perhaps Jennifer should have tried the traditional route. Monica
Pellante used the excuse of what might happen if she became angry. By the time she got
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around to it, it was too late: ”1 tried to put off getting mad for as long as possible, but I
Monica was afraid of the boys at Leighton High School—pure and simple. And perhaps
she failed to realize that there is a difference between getting angry and losing one's cool.
Tim Meehy who had major problems with discipline became aware of what can happen in
a shouting match and wisely avoided doing so, but he backed up too much, internalized his
anger and ultimately negated the benefit of his own advice by unconsciously substituting
I don't like to get into a shouting match with them, and I haven't done it, but there were
a few times when I could feel myself ready to explode and yell and scream. 1 didn't do
it, but now, even when Tm angry, I keep cool because I think that is one of the ways
that kids like to defeat the teacher.
Keeping cool is one of the first lessons learned in mediation. It prevents escalation of
an argument. Tim was right when he stated that becoming flustered was a surefire avenue
to defeat But being disrespected and not taking action in order to remain cool is an open
invitation to abuse. Urban students will immediately get behind any student who
Threatening detention was equated with becoming "harder'' by Jennifer Benares, but in
the classroom actions speak louder than words. If threats are not backed up, they weaken
the student teacher's authority even more. The latter part of this comment indicates a
There are times when I wasn't enough of a disciplinarian, and because it just got me
frustrated and got me mad, and it was noisy and things were out of hand, I would all of
a sudden threaten detention for everybody. It did make me harder, but I was still
conscious of the fact that I wasn't going to fall into harsh disciplinary actions as a way
of dealing with it all the time.
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Jennifer was consciously avoiding becoming a disciplinarian. In fact she was determined
not to do so despite the advice of graduate instructors and veteran urban teachers:
Everyone always says you start out hard, and so when I went into my student teaching,
I went in there with the intention of being a firm teacher, a firm disciplinarian. People
would suggest "Throw a couple of kids out the first two days just so they know that
you're serious about it."
But Jennifer listened to her heart instead of her head. Rather than acknowledge that
there must be a reason so many educators and so many urban teachers in particular
recommend being firm initially, she chose, as many student teachers do, to try it her way.
And while she could say something like "Well I had to try it," she would have neglected to
consider the students who were hurt by a noisy, chaotic classroom. Students are not
One occasionally successful method of employing discipline is to let the class police
itself. If the student teacher is liked enough, "good" students sometimes come to their
rescue. Sometimes peer pressure is far more effective than a strong hand as Julie Boswick
stated: "I wouldn't really have to discipline them because the rest of the class would say
Even in the hallways and parking lots peer pressure is important. But here too the
student teacher must be wary. In the world of street smart, a favor is always expected to
Overall, a lot of the kids would stick up for me which I really didn't need. They were
very protective of me. I was walking down the hall, and I heard someone say, "Look at
that goofy white boy." Karen said, "That’s Mr. Macelroy. He’s not goofy. You better
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shut up, or I'll knock you out." Andy and Cosmo saw me driving in, and I beeped the
horn at them. They saw where I parked, and they said, "Mr. Macelroy, that's a nice
Chevy that you got. We have someone watching that for you all day, so you dont have
to worry about it."
Peter may have been well liked, but letting a student defend him from a "goofy white
boy" epithet rather than handling it himself will earn him a reputation he will not find
desirable when isolated. And someone keeping an eye on his car for protection can quickly
Chris Ristous, the only participant in my sample who grew up and attended schools in
an urban location, had the least amount of problems with discipline. He instinctively knew
exactly what would work for him and used an example from history to make his point:
I smiled a lot, but I laid the lines down, and I told them I'd make an example. I told
them flat out, "First kid I'm making an example of. Ill give you a little history lesson.
The Romans did every tenth guy. HI do that." I got one kid for a minor thing. After
that it was all right: "He's got some teeth. He's got a bite along with his bark."
There is far less pain in breaking something quickly than bending it slowly. Chris did
what he had to do quickly and decisively. "Busting" someone for a minor infraction
prevented the necessity of busting someone for a major infractioa Urban students
understand power, and they respect those who know when and when not to use it.
The strategy of making an example out of one student is apparently a popular one. It is
interesting to note that even those teachers who saw themselves as non-disciplinarians
mentioned how often they were given the advice of "nailing" one or two students to
establish order. Here again, James Ramaska acknowledged the necessity of doing so.
"Sometimes it’s a whole group of people that are being disruptive, and I pick out one kid.
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It's unfortunate for him, but sometimes things like that have to happen to set an example or
But no system is foolproof. There are some students in urban schools who are angry at
the conditions they live in and who vent their bitterness on the school. They can poison the
best of teachers. 'Tool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” is a Chinese
philosophy reflected in the comments of James Ramaska who, regardless of his initial
I try to give every kid a fair shake, but there are kids who gnaw at you. You give them
a chance. You give them breaks, and they don't appreciate it. They just want to keep
testing you and testing you. It's very easy to just turn those kids out or get turned off to
those kids. It's easy to not want to put the effort in to help them.
John's changing attitude supports findings that student teachers experience a significant
increase in custodial pupil ideology by the end of the practicum (Hoy, 1967; Hoy and
Rees, 1977). It's easy to identify that some students misbehave, but it's difficult to identify
why some students act the way they do. A boy who watches his single mother sleeping
with a variety of boyfriends might never be friendly to a female teacher. A girl whose
father abused her mother might never trust a male teacher. Coming down on either of
these or other students who have a bevy of legitimate reasons for being angry could cause a
violent reaction. Turning away from students like these will only deepen their depression.
Raymond Strathmore regretted maintaining too great a distance between himself and his
I didn't really get to know them as much as I should have. Partially that's just my
personality and partially because I was trying to hold back a little bit because I was
afraid of being taken advantage of being so young and being a new teacher. I knew
they would try to make as many problems for me as they could. I was kind of turning a
cold shoulder on them to a point.
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Neither Raymond nor Jennifer were ever able to relax in the classroom; he, because he
held back too much and she, because she held back too little. Some of the lessons they
learned can only be taught through experience. That is one reason why a prepracticum
that involves more teaching might be far more beneficial than a prepracticum based on
observation.
wayward students back in the classroom. While that may be annoying initially, James
In that standard class period eight, we were having a lot of kids skipping class, and we
cracked down on the AWOLS, and I got them all back, and it really disrupted the class
for awhile. So, by enforcing the rules I made the class worse. But obviously that's part
of the job. Now a lot of those kids aren't even coming to school. It's better when
there's fewer kids there.
James took the high road and paid a bittersweet price. Many urban teachers take a
the number of times students are sent to an assistant principal for disciplinary purposes. If
a student who is likely to misbehave cuts class, it's far easier to ignore it and thereby
eliminate the necessity of sending the student out. Without the troublemaker in class,
things go more smoothly. Since the student will fail for lack of participation, the teacher's
conscience is clear; the student has chosen to fail. It may be the easiest choice, but it is not
Like it or not discipline is a game that must be played by student teachers and their
students. The object of the game for student teachers is to make their classroom a safe
mutual respect and caring. The object of the game for students is to test student teachers
and the rules they impose. The winner of the game is the party which gains control first.
The game is fun for the students but anxiety-provoking for the student teachers. Ironically
both sides are interested in the same commodity: respect. The difference is that student
A, Introduction
Of the fifteen participants I interviewed for this study, Julie Boswick was the most
memorable. A single mother with an impish quality, Julie was highly opinionated and
extremely candid. Proud of her accomplishments and her self suflfciency, she was never
apologetic or regretful about having a child out of wedlock. She was passionate about her
teaching. She loved her students, especially those who, like herself, were stereotyped by
others. She enjoyed being interviewed. She spoke from the heart. I never tired of hearing
I was really introverted when I was little. And I used to read. Nancy Drew was my
favorite. My parents used to fight a lot, so I think reading was kind of an escape. I still
read when I get stressed out. I always wanted to have a good vocabulary.
The town I grew up in is not diverse at all. I don’t think that the values projected in the
school system were good. I didn't like it. They didn't have any acceptance for anyone that
didn't fit the mold that they wanted. And the kids that didn't fit the mold that they wanted
were dismissed rather than trying to tap into them in some way.
I don't judge a person because they have long hair. The kids with long hair in my
classes that might smoke marijuana or something, the kids that are anti-establishment; some
of those are "A" students in my class. They are in my class even though they might fail in
other classes because I don't pre-judge. I have girls in my classes who have dog collars and
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pink hair, and they are brilliant. In my own school system, at least when I was there, I
The reason that I really never reflected negatively on tracking up until high school was
because I was always in the higher levels. It didn't really bother me because I was one of
the smart kids. I became cognizant of it when we had a test to see who was going to be
able to take foreign language. When you got to sixth grade, certain kids could take foreign
language, and certain kids couldn't. I flunked the test to take foreign language. My mother
had a back operation that day. I was really worried about my mother, and my grandmother
wouldn't let me stay home from school. I just bombed the test by chance.
They were all shocked that Julie Boswick flunked the test. "She's going to have to retest
because there must be some reason why she didn't pass the test." I had to go retest, but I
knew how it felt to be one of those kids when they read off the names that weren't going to
get to take foreign language in sixth grade, and it was horrible. I was really upset, so I can
imagine those kids who knew they weren't going to get called. How they must have felt.
I had several teachers that had a negative impact. Mrs. Grames-she's probably dead
now—in first grade, who told my mother I would never learn how to read. Mrs. Grames
was getting very frustrated with me and called my mother in for a conference because my
reading wasn't up to par. And I remember being really upset. "She’s never going to learn
how to read." She said it right in front of me. And it was horrible. By the end of the year
I was in the first reading group, so it shows how much Mrs. Grames knew. I remember
I was always considered the smart one in the family, and my sister, Alyson, was always
the one that struggled. She used to get really upset because I never really had to study in
school to get decent grades, and she would work so hard, and she'd get a "C." I used to
say, "If s not fair. I get an' A,' and I don't do any work, and you really try. You should be
the one getting 'A's." That used to get me really mad. The grading was unfair because she
tried so hard. She really, really tried, and she could never get above a "C."
life. I got voted class clown in seventh grade. The brains were in my classes. The jocks
were in my classes. And the burnouts were my friends. I didn't even fit in with them. I
I didn't want to be categorized because I thought the whole categorization thing was
wasn't like any one particular group. I was smart, but I wasn't a little geek. The ones that
were the real brains were, for the most part, the real rich kids. Their parents would get
them computers. I didn't fit in like that; all these private little things that they did on the
I didn't really fit in with the jocks category although I used to like to date the jocks.
Those were usually the cutest guys. And the burn-out category; I spent most of my time
with them. My sister was in that category. They seemed most accepting of people's
differences out of any other group. They were the most looked down upon by the school
and by the other students. I really didn't want to be fully affiliated because I didn't want to
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be labeled like that, but I thought that they were the most accepting of people’s differences.
Anyone could believe whatever they wanted to believe and be who they wanted to be.
I thought they were more like, "If you're poor, oh well; if your parents are divorced, oh
well." Some of the kids' parents were divorced. Some of the kids just lived with their
moms, some of the kids didn't have a father or whatever, and that was okay. No one
judged anybody based on that. I didn't feel like I had to compete with them.
The rich kids didn't understand how life really was. I felt that they were handed
everything. They didn't have to work for anything. They didn't value anything, and they
were snobby. We weren't poor, but we weren't like that. And our value system was
They were just given such opportunity, and I really didn't think they appreciated it or
realized it. I think they negatively judged other people who didn't have it, and that's not
right You can say, "I have every color Levis, and my parents are buying me a car when I
Terry was my best friend. She was really smart, and she was the person that was most
like me. Her father left, remarried someone young, and left her mother with five kids.
They all haH two pairs of pants for school, and she had to wear them all the time. People
would make fun of her. And that used to make me mad. That's just not right.
There were a lot of things going oa My parents weren't getting along; they didn't help
me at all. I didn't really fit in anywhere. I think a lot of people feel that way when they
were seventeea They don't really fit in anywhere. I really think that I'm a good high
school teacher because I hated high school. I have a lot of reasons why I didn't like it, and
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I think I can make high school a better place, so I'm a Julie Boswick mold. I know the
things I didn't like about it, and I think I can conduct my classes and make people feel
differently.
I really think that it gives me an edge on somebody else who didn't have that
experience because I know why people don't like school. A lot of the complaints that I
voiced when I was seventeen are the same feelings that my students articulate when they
say what they would want to change about the educational system.
I didn't like people judging people on how they looked or teachers judging students on
how they looked and thinking just because you have long hair or purple hair, or you only
have two pairs of pants that you are stupid. That's not necessarily true. Some of those
people are "A" students in my classes. I think that's wrong, and I think a lot of teachers do
it.
I think a lot of teachers have one standard for their advanced classes and one standard
for their lower classes. The kids used to call basic classes "fun for the mentals;" it would
teaching them.
I think I just question authority. Part of it is that I wasn't getting discipline at home.
My mother was working. She was just starting a job. She was
really very busy, plus my parents didn't get along. We really didn't get a lot of authority at
home, and I was in charge. I used to make dinners for my sisters and take care of them
and do a lot of stuff at home. And I would be like "Who are you?" to teachers. "Who are
This is the kind of thing that would happen to me. There would be twenty girls
smoking in the bathroom. A teacher would walk in, and because they didn't like me and I
skipped school a lot, I would be the one that she would point out. So me, seeing that there
should be equity, would protest. I would go down and say, "Listen, Mr. Assistant
Principal, rm not saying that it was right that I smoked in the bathroom, but there were
twenty other girls smoking in the bathroom, and that teacher just chose to single me out,
and I really resent that because I am trying to turn over a new leaf, and I'm trying to come
to school more and trying to fit in here and trying to do what I can, and this is
discrimination," and the guy agreed with me. I still got my five days suspension, but he
I was kind of glad I was going to college because they would treat me like an adult. I
just thought it would be better because you could come and go as you
wanted and get a decent lunch. I just liked the idea of college. I always knew I was going
I graduated from community college, then I went to Lane University, then I got
pregnant my first semester, so I withdrew, and I dropped out of Lane for five years, and
then I went back. I had my son. I stayed home the first year with my son, and then I took
a class at night, and then I worked at the IRS for two years. Then I worked at the local
newspaper for a few years. The reason I decided to go back to school was because they
wouldn’t promote me because I didn't have a Bachelor's Degree, so I said "Well fine, Fm
I had Measurement class which teaches you how to grade. They give you a bunch of
statistical crap; some of it is useful, but some of it isn’t. I don’t do very well with statistics,
Once we got to be teachers and did our student teaching, we realized how good those
teachers that we were critiquing really were. But we'd go in and trash on the teachers.
The one thing that I felt lacking about the program at Lane University was, and maybe
it's because you can’t teach it, was how to discipline. It was the thing that I was the most
nervous about. It is the hardest thing about teaching. They should have some kind of a
class dedicated to it, even if it's only a role playing thing where people get to do the most
hellacious things that you can think of in a classroom and then see how people acting as the
teacher would handle it. I didn’t think there was any preparation for that at all.
The best class that I had was my Methods class in Teaching. That was with Priscilla
Fucella who I think is an excellent instructor. Hard as hell, this woman. She made us
work so hard. Every other Methods class was a breeze, and ours was hard as hell. We
had to do a thirty page paper minimum, a ten day lesson plan complete with test, quizzes,
any resource that we used, any extra material. But she was just excellent. We had to do
several mock lessons for the class, and she evaluated them, and she was not easy on you
even though you were a wreck to get up there. She would still give you the hardest time.
There would be philosophical debates among us student teachers. A lot of people felt
like if the kid doesn’t want to learn, if the kid doesn’t want to participate, he’s out. I was
always the liberal advocate. I felt if the kid doesn't want to learn
it's your duty as a teacher to find out why he or she doesn't want to learn. You have to
look at the reasons behind the behavior. Find out why they don’t want to participate. Is
there something wrong at home? Send them to guidance. It's not going to do anybody
any good to be just tossing the kid out everyday for a behavior problem.
We had another class called Issues of Educating Minority Students in Schools. That
was a class I was more than excited to take because by that time I was in the second
semester, and I was pretty sure I was going to go to Leighton High to do my student
teaching. I thought this class was going to help me so much. Til love it. But I didn't.
What was the problem with the instructor? She didn't, for some reason, she didn't like me.
I think it was when I told her that single parents were a minority; it was like she thought I
The class was really lacking. She discriminated against me. She was minority. Black,
African American. I thought she didn't have as much of an open mind as you would
expect someone who was teaching Minority Class to have. I just expected something
If you are the teacher of "Minorities," you should be overly conscious of equality.
Maybe she thought I was a little too outspoken. Maybe I was because when I got really
adamant, I would yell. But it was when people were advocating tracking and how it would
improve students, and I was just totally against it. I used to always say that my sisters had
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been tracked, and they don’t believe in themselves now. And I really feel that it doesn’t
help anybody. She just didn't like me. Maybe I was a little too strong in my opinions, but I
I didn’t want to go to Choctaw High where the experience might have been easier
because I thought that anyone could teach at Choctaw High. What's so special about you?
So, I wanted to put myself in the hardest element so that I would be a guaranteed a good
group once because it was one of our required schools. And that was okay. I didn't think
any of the teachers were great. I thought a lot of them were horrible. And then I went
back for a second time because I couldn't decide if I was going to go there or not. I was all
Then I went back the second time. I was by myself, and I stayed a whole day, and I
liked it a little bit better. But I thought they needed help. I thought, "Boy, I cant do too
badly here because these teachers arent that great anyway." This sounds really
judgmental. It really does. This is how I thought at the time. In retrospect, I realize how
difficult it is. The conditions they're working under are hard, and I’ve come to see why it is
the way it is, but at the time I felt "These people don’t deserve to be employed. They
should open the gate for us because we couldn't do worse than this." There was just
The person that I learned the most from was Mr. Roberts [a cooperating teacher]. We
got along well personally. I like him a lot. I used to tell him, Tm not learning anything
from these people," not from him but from a couple of the other teachers that I had. And
he used to say, "Julie, I don't mean to criticize you or anything, but these people have been
teaching for twenty years, and you should be able to learn something from them. You cant
just discount people like that" which I think I had a tendency to do. Tm new, Tm
enthusiastic, Tm up on the current teaching methods, and "get the hell out because you
dont know what your doing," you know? I really felt I was a little bit too bold. I realize
that now.
I tend to be an adamant person. I have a vision of how I think education should be, and
anything short of that I dismiss. I have a tendency to do that with a lot of things. I realize
that about myself, and I try not to do it as much. Most people are a lot more humble going
in. Most people were a lot more like, "I dont know how to teach, I dont know what to do.
These people are going to show me." I was cocky actually to go in thinking "Get out.
You dont deserve your job," and I really was like that for the majority of my student
teaching experience. I think the whole experience did help me to a degree, but I still think
Mr. Petralia should be fired. I did learn some things about what can happen after years of
fftarhing in a school system that you think doesn't care about your needs or wants.
Whatever the reason for his own sanity, I think the guy should either peacefully resign or
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retire or put himself out of his misery because it's just not working in there. The classes are
not working.
I walked into his classroom which was out of control from day one. You, as someone
that has never taught before in your life, are in a situation where you have to get control
over that class. It is the hardest thing that I ever did, and I still dont know if I ever did it
right. He didn't really explain anything. He just passed out worksheets that didn't seem to
have anything to them. I felt Tve got to liberate these kids!" That’s what I felt like. I felt
bad. I felt like "They're not learning anything in here. This is busy work, this is not right."
Priscilla Fucella {college supervisor} came in the first day to evaluate me. In retrospect
she wanted to make sure I was going to be all right. I thought it was a little strange. I felt
"Why are you going to evaluate me on my first day? I dont think that's really fair. No one
is going to be graded on their first day." She said, "I just want to observe you. I dont
want to evaluate you on your first day." But on reflection, she probably wanted to make
My first class in there was great. I came in, and I was demanding participation:
"You're gonna get up, and you're gonna speak for your group, and this homework's due,"
and the class never really got to where I wanted it to be. Priscilla Fucella used to tell me
that I did great. I always did really well in all of my observations in there. She used to
write, "She can do it. She can turn the class around. I know she can. She's trying so
hard." She used to tell me, "Just don’t exhaust yourself trying to do it. Do the best you
can."
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That class was hard. Doing a group activity would be like running around in circles.
"So do you know how to do this? You're doing this," "You're staying on
task." Priscilla said, "I felt bad for you. I'm going to get you a drink." She said, "You're
I lost momentum towards the end when I knew I only had three weeks left. I fought it
tooth and nail. I did everything I could think of to try to turn it around. I really did. I tried
everything, and I think there were times when I reached them, and that's the only thing I
can say on my behalf. I did reach some of them sometimes. The class was a wasteland to
begin with. I tried the best I could. I really did, and that*s all you can really expect from
yourself. From that class I've learned you have to look how things are when you get them
What I started thinking was "Supposing they never take another history class. What do
I want them to know about history? This might be the only thing they ever learn," so I just
went into the 60's because I think that's important, especially for them. I just threw the
required curriculum away. Sony Leighton High. I constantly felt the pressure of "They're
not gonna learn a damn thing after I leave." I did the role of women in history. I did the
"Isn't there any way these seniors can pass?" I asked Mr.Petralia, and he said, "If you
want to do that kind of extra work, then you go right ahead." I made
up packets for the seniors who were going to fail and told them, "You do this in addition to
your regular work, and Til change your two failing grades to the minimal passing standard
I pass kids who put in effort. If a kid is genuinely trying, HI pass them. Maybe that's
wrong, but I don't have that much belief in tests, especially in a school that’s made up
mostly of minority students where they might have a problem with English. Maybe I'm
The other student teachers and I went out every Friday afternoon. We went to the Pub
every Friday afternoon and talked about our week and played pool and had beers. It was
It depends on my mood really. I have some days when I just don’t want to get up in
front of them, and I have a lecture planned, and I just rack my brains for something else to
do because I hate it. I’ve come to think every teacher must be like that. They must have
days when they say Tm just not up to this today" I can wing it a lot better than I ever
thought I could which is surprising. I work my ass off now. I really do. I put in a good
four hours a night on work, and I have nothing left to give so Tm not too hard on myself if
I have to wing it. It's not very often that I wing it.
There were a few challenging kids. Nazem Assadd, I hated that kid. I didn't hate him.
I actually liked him, but he would just challenge my authority every single day. And I
probably should have tossed him, but I liked the kid, and I didn't really know that I had
power. I had some behavior problems with those classes anyway. They were both
"You shouldn't have done it," {abortion discussion} Priscilla Fucella said, "You set
yourself up. You had an excellent lesson, you should have known your population a little
better than you did." They got charged and emotional about the issue, and all of them
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wanted to talk at once. I said, "You cant continue this unless eveiyone speaks one at a
time." And for ten minutes eveiyone would be respectful, and then it would just get the
I think now if I were going to do it, I would have prefaced it with, "This is a very
emotional and controversial topic. We are not going to disrespect each other while we're
discussing it. We are going to discuss it like the young adults that we are. Anyone that can
not do that, we will stop discussing this topic." And I should have done that. I should have
switched the topic when it got too charged, and I didn't. I was just too amateur. I just
Some of the faculty is sexist. I was so caught up in getting my own things done I guess
I didn't really analyze my environment as much as I probably should have, but I thought
Mr. Roberts was a little sexist. He would say "Glad Miss Boswick is teaching you about all
these women in history because I certainly wouldn't." And Td say, "You're joking right?"
And he'd say, "Absolutely not" He would go off on some real chauvinist thing, and I was
I would jump in and say, "I just cant believe you said that," and the kids would love it.
They would love it because we'd go back and forth. "I cant believe you said such a sexist
thing." There was a few times when I just couldnt sit back and take it.
Mrs. Buford, she's really involved in the student council and making sure they have a
good prom and all that. On the face I guess it looks like teachers dont care about the kids,
but if you really look at it, by the time I left I thought that each one of them had their own
way of caring.
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The fact that I'm a single mother makes me a little more sympathetic to the girls in my
classes that have children and are trying to stay in school. I will definitely bend over
backwards; there's no question about it. Some teachers will have an attitude that you are
an idiot for having a child when you were in high school. "You shouldn't have been doing
that, and so I'm not giving you any breaks. You tow the line.” With me they feel like
"Miss Boswick I'm sorry I was absent yesterday. My daughter was really sick. I had to take
her to the doctor's. Can you please give me my week report?" And you know, of course, I
will. And maybe they're giving me a song and dance. I don't think so. IVe been there.
Well, first of all I know how discriminated against you are by society. I came from a
nice family. I was always fairly popular in school and had a lot of good friends, and I was
pretty liberated. I wanted to do what I believed was the right thing to do. I was twenty
years old. I wanted to do what I thought was right. I didn't think my life would change
that much. I didn't think people would look down on me, and boy was I wrong.
From my friends to members of my family, I went from having no problems with men
to having a major problem with men. A lot of people wouldn’t even want to go out with
me because I had a child. I wasn't asking them to come in and support it. I just faced a lot
of attitudes, and I think it's really an area of discrimination that people don't look at, but
you're looked at like you're a loser for getting pregnant in the first place, and that was a
stupid thing to do. Then you were doubly stupid not to just have an abortion. And I think
they [girls who become pregnant illegitimately] should be given credit for sticking up for
rm not saying there’s anything wrong with someone having an abortion if that's what
they choose. I think you have to be true to yourself in this life because you're the one who
has to live with what your doing. I thought more people would think I was brave. And
they didn't. People thought that I was dumb. And I always try to let the girls in my classes
know that. Td say "Hey, anyone can make a mistake. You aren't doing anything different
than everyone else is doing. Dont let people make you feel bad, but it's not an excuse not
to perform in life either. I did it, you can do it too. All it is, is a matter of how hard you
are going to work. You're going to work harder than everybody else.”
"Don't use that as an excuse. And I'm sorry if you're tired doing your homework. I
stayed up plenty of nights tired doing my homework. You've got to. You have twice as
much of a reason to make it as someone else does because you do have that child. And
that's responsibility."
There are some that use it as an excuse. Most of them suffer from very low self esteem
because of the way society views it although maybe society doesn't view it as badly as it did
when I was pregnant. Times have changed a little bit over the past ten years, and I found
that in my classes the single mothers are not treated as badly as I would expect.
You shouldn't just label the one who you can see had sex. That's wrong. It's like
wearing a scarlet letter. I think that teachers have to be in a position where they do have to
be accepting of the society that we're given, and single parents in our classrooms deserve to
have an equal chance in life. They shouldn't be given an attitude. No kid should be given
an attitude for any reason by a teacher. Teachers can have their own personal beliefs
about promiscuity, about homosexuality, go ahead. But the second they start inflicting
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their viewpoint on a kid and making her feel bad, then they shouldn't have that job because
that's wrong.
A lot of people are judgmental. People that you would never anticipate to be like that
are like that. Like my grandmother; I was not too shocked when she was mortified. But
my father was horrible. I was always the smart one. My father thought I was going to be
a lawyer or something really important, and he thought my life was over. I said, "Dad, I
didn't die. You know, I didn't die. I'm still alive, and I'm still going to be a success. Just
you watch." He cried for weeks. Not because someone hurt his poor little girl or because
she was going through a hard time but because she was going to be a failure. Her life was
going to be horrible, and there was no hope for her now. Half of my motivation to
I think it's a problem for women from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico that
come over here because the mark of womanhood for them in their culture is to have a
child. And then they come here, and their parents still believe those cultural values. And
they're mixed up, and they still kind of believe the cultural values that are passed down in
their family. But those values aren't respected in America. I noticed that at Leighton High
with single parent girls. They were proud of it. They were proud that they had a child,
and everyone saw their pictures, and I didn't see that much shame in it.
I was a little taken back by that. That they were like that. I was always a little humble
about it. I wouldn't go announcing it because I wanted to be judged on me. I didn't think
people would judge me on me if they knew. I think all their stereotypes of a single parent
come flooding through their head. And I wanted to be judged on me, so I wasn't like that.
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But a lot of times a baby is the only thing that they have that is their own. And they're
After awhile it beats on them hard. Let them have pride in their kid; at least they will
love the kid if they're feeling like that. That is a cultural thing with the Latin American girls
where it really isnt a disgrace to have a child at sixteen or seventeen. A lot of their parents
did. A lot of their parents are only thirty years old, and these girls are sixteen years old in
the classroom.
I would tell them that I was a single parent. 1 could relate any minority situation, any
feeling of inferiority to how I felt in that circumstance. I don't think it's only for single
mothers. I could understand anyone who feels disadvantaged in any certain way. lean
relate to how they [girls who become pregnnt illegitmately] feel better than maybe another
teacher who didn't experience that. I was deeply affected by my getting pregnant. I had
always been treated better than a lot of people, and all of sudden people who I never
expected to give me an attitude did. And I lost a lot of Mends. The expectations of me
and my success rate in life went down. I just think it's opened my mind to a different way
not going to insult you because you are. That's not right. I think the same standards
Angelica said to me, "You know, yours is the only class that I got a decent grade in
because all the other teachers took a lot of points off because I was absent." And I said,
"Didn't you have a baby? Isnt that why you were absent? That's a legitimate absence." A
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lot of people don't think so. She did feel some kind of an attitude from her teachers. Her
life revolves around school and taking care of her baby. School should be a nice place for
her to socialize with people her own age. She shouldn't be bombarded with an attitude
from teachers.
They're just very affectionate, the Spanish male. They're very affectionate. A couple
of them tried to hug me when I was there: "Oh, Miss Boswick." A lot of them have that
macho attitude. I think it's kind of cute. I think it's funny. I used to laugh about it because
they used to think they were so cool-these little sixteen year old kids. I just laughed and
said, "Sit down Jose." I would just joke it off. I would say, "Jose, you're cute. Sit down,
and dont let that happen again. You know that's inappropriate," but I didn't really make a
big fuss.
How did I survive? Part of it is how I felt about high school and how I knew I was
going to be different when I got to be a teacher, and I think that helped. Things that IVe
been through in my adult life with being a single parent really made me able to. I'm a
strong person. IVe been through a lot in life. I didn't think it was easy. I thought that
Being young makes it harder to be a student teacher. Some kids said, "It was like
having a friend, having you as our teacher." And that got me mad. I dont want to be your
friend. On the cards they would write, "You are a nice friend as well as being a teacher."
Did I even have a personal conversation with that kid? I dont think that I did. And it was
strange, but I think students have more of a tendency to view you as not an authority
figure, so I think you have a bigger burden to establish yourself as an authority figure than
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someone who's older. They're like, "Hey, a young teacher." They think that you're going
to know how they feel and all that. And part of it is true, but you have to get their respect,
I would say that girls would be less likely to come up and talk to me after class. You
know, "Oh have a nice week-end Miss Boswick." Some of them would say, "Oh Miss
Boswick, we like you, but we're not going to kiss up. See you later." And the guys would
This [enjoying teaching academic level classes more than teaching basic level classes] is
totally against eveiything I stand for because I do believe in everyone having an equal
opportunity. Evetyone needs a good teacher. Basic level kids are only acting the way
they've been brought up, and they’re only acting the way people have treated them in the
past, so maybe I have to think about it a little more. But I felt personal rewards from my
academic classes at Leighton High. I knew I reached them. I had classes where I could
almost cry because we talked about something so in depth, and I felt that I really reached
them.
I felt like I got somewhere. I could see tangible results just about every lesson, and I
need that reinforcement that I'm doing a good job, and so I was motivated because "ooh
they loved this lesson." My creativity; I would be constantly rewarded because they would
like it, get into it, even go tell their regular teacher that "Oh she did this in our class, and we
really liked it," and those teachers would come back and say "Oh my kids are excited to go
in your class. What have you been doing in there?" so I would feel rewards from it.
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My attitude was Tm going make this work. They're going to change,” over and over
and over in my mind. "They're only acting the way that they've been treated." By the end
I was like, "Well Tm not here to rewrite the wrongs of the whole dam society. I'm only one
person." It was really hard for me at the end because I just lost motivation for it. I was
just burnt out I was tired. I was working really hard. I had never done it before. I had a
son, I had a boyfriend who was new them Now our relationship is solid enough if I have
three months where he's not on the top burner, then that's fine. But at the time it was still
so new. I felt that had to be a priority also. I was burnt out by the end. I still never
abandoned ship, but I wasn't trying cooperative learning lessons in Petralia's class by the
last month whereas the first month I was going full steam.
I was going to turn that class around. They were going to be different. They were
going to learn more. I was going to teach them the way they had never been taught before.
I was going to get through to them God damn it. That's how I felt. But at the end, I was
like Tm going to have a break-down. I cant do it. It's not like I started handing them out
worksheets all the time, but my lessons weren't as creative. I didn't know what else to do. I
really didn't.
And there were many different ways that I was feeling rewards and being reinforced
that I was doing a good job. In these basic classes maybe that would
happen once a week, and that felt so much better than the rewards that you would get in
the academic class because there it was so consistent. I had a few times that it was really
good. I did this thing on the 1896 Election; it was a cooperative learning thing. Priscilla
They broke into four groups, and they were all part of a campaign. There were four
candidates in the 1896 election, and they each had to do a whole packet and draw a map of
the states their candidate covered and make a campaign speech. I figured three days to
work on it; it took them much, much longer to get it down. By the end of it, I felt "No one
is really into this." Priscilla observed me, and she said, Julie, you must be exhausted."
Then at the end of it I thought no one really cared about it. Just had to pass it in. I thought
Tm not even going to do the speeches. The heck with it. They're not really into it. I'm
not going to even bother giving the speeches and having the election to see who will win.
"Well, wait a minute, we didn't have our election! We've all been talking about it all
week!" That was so great that they really did care. I was so excited that they really had
been looking forward to it, and even though they didn't express that to me by their actions
they really were doing it, and that class went great. All the people got to speak; no one said
anything disrespectful while they were up speaking. Everyone clapped for everyone else.
Well, maybe they should distribute the people in the classes, not based on ability. If
they did that then no teachers are going to feel burnt out because there's only a few of
these people in each class. Rather than giving a whole class full of them. I can handle one
or two in a class, but a whole class full of them is just like, the class is a grease pit.
academic kids have never been arrested or never been a product of a divorced family, so
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when you're in social studies class where issues of your own experience come up quite
If they just distributed it so that you're just getting a group, it would work out better
because no one wants to teach those kids. The teachers that don't want to do anything but
get paid are the people who want to teach it. These kids deserve good teachers too.
They've just been given crap their whole life, so they expect crap. And you know, it's
awful. But I also dont want to teach them either, do I? No, so I'm just as bad as
All I know is if I'm put in a situation where I have to do it, or if I elect to do it, which I
doubt, I would quit my job before I treated those kids badly. I swear to God I would. If
I'm put in a position where I have to do it, I will at my own expense if necessary, find out
what methods are going to work for them. I will not treat them like waste dump. I just
won't do it. M probably kill myself, but I feel that obligation. I would treat them and work
with them as hard as I do for any other class. I know that That's how I am.
I don't want to teach elite little kids like Avellan has to offer. I think they're going to be
okay in life. Their parents care about them; they're going to college. They're going to be
exposed to social studies in their home at least. Their parents read the paper or watch PBS
I feel kids at Leighton High School might not have that. And they need that. I really
feel like I want to help, and I dont want to teach a bunch of spoiled brats. And I shouldnt
even say that because they might not be spoiled, and they do deserve good teachers. But
they have everything going for them already. For the most part, they come from a family
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where, if they want to go to college, they can afford to go. Their parents, even if they're
At Leighton there are a lot of kids that work full time to help their mother. There are a
lot of kids whose parents dont know English, and they're trying to go through high school.
I really dont want to help students that I feel will be okay anyway. I want to make a
difference. And I want to be in a place where I feel that I'm making a difference, that Pm
getting somewhere. Tm making a difference in their whole life-whether or not they will
ever vote in America because of me. It's important to me to make a positive contribution
to society.
hell of a lot easier, but it's just not me. I dont even know if I can relate as well to them.
That's not my experience. I havent had that experience. That's so funny because one
would look at my life and say, "Well, you grew up in North Avellan, went to North
Avellan High, you're a college graduate, you have your Master's degree." One would on
the face say, "Well, Avellan High would be more her style." But I dont identify with them
at all, I identify with a group that's totally not even my ethnic group. It's just an attitude. I
Student teaching at Leighton High was challenging and rewarding. It was the hardest
thing that I ever loved I guess. That would be the best thing to say. Even if I was just a
happy face that they saw. Some of them, maybe that's all they got out it, but at least that
was something.
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I learned more than I taught about history and government too. There was a lot that I
didn't know. Mr. Roberts used to tell me, "Don't worry about it. You know more than
they do," and I said, "I don't think so." There were some classes like that one before 1877.
I didn't know crap, but that was the part that was the hardest. One of the hardest things
was you go into a whole social situation. You have to gain authority, you have to try to
differ your methodology and you don't even have that great of a base of the subject to go
on. If you have that, you're golden because you can bluff. But if you dont have that, oh
boy, that sucks. That really is hard, and that is the situation that I was in because I really
did not have the knowledge that I needed for that class.
Mr. Petralia was a terrible teacher. I know that even if it was a detriment to my own
well being, I would not inflict that on children. I just dont think that’s right, or Td just be
up front: "I dont care, so dont take it personally." At least let them know it's not that
they're stupid or something. I think he's giving them negative vibes about who they arc:
"We dont get the good teacher. We get this guy who gives us movies. He must think
we're idiots. We're not worthy of anything." He should at least preface his classes with
This interview pointed out the contradiction in my philosophy that I didnt really see as
existing; with teaching basic classes and how I feel about people, so maybe I should be a
little more willing to teach them. It's just such a challenge. That's my reasoning, but that's
not acceptable. I know that, and I feel bad now. I feel a little upset that I'm like that. I
G. Ruminations
What I liked most about Julie was her honesty. She said what was on her mind, and
she said it without compunction. Her early days as a rebel culminated in an unexpected
pregnancy at twenty years old which changed her life. This pregnancy sensitized her to
discrimination of any kind, and she became an advocate for young single mothers in
particular. She was very clear, however, about not using single motherhood as an excuse
for doing nothing. By having and raising her son alone and going back to college to
become a teacher she showed a sense of independence, responsibility and great tenacity.
She is a survivor.
Julie's bias against the wealthy is obvious, and her observation that the burnout group is
the only non-judgmental clique is quite profound. Her hatred for her high school
experience was predicated on her school system's refusal to recognize and respect students
who did not fit the preferred mold Julie refused to be categorized That she wanted to
student teach at Leighton High School is a reflection of wanting to work with students who
were marginal. She felt an alliance with them along spiritual rather than ethnic lines. That
she did not want to teach at a suburban high school is a reflection of her bias against elitism
of any kind.
Julie is not without shortcomings. Despite her warm smile and buoyant personality, she
is guilty of the fault she despised in so many others—being judgmental. She was quick to
form assumptions and to criticize people-especially teachers. Along with people who were
wealthy and powerful, she lambasted teachers she deemed incompetent, racist or sexist.
She entered her practicum with an egotistical swagger, and she relished the opportunities to
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display her combativeness. Although she was aware of this fault, she acknowledged that
Julie was down to earth. Her observations on the "Spanish male" and the way she
ability to work with it. She saw the dangers in her youthful looks and was very adamant
about not establishing personal relationships with students which would jeopardize her
control.
Julie was unafraid to tackle controversial topics with her students which many seasoned
teachers would have shied away from. She threw herself enthusiastically into all that she
did. She believed in passing students if they tried. She said that she learned more than she
taught, evidence of her dislike for lecture and her love for intercommunicative teaching.
Because she witnessed what labeling did to her younger sister, Julie despised tracking
and suggested distributing basic level students and/or classes equally among all teachers.
As a result of reflection and honest discussion in her interview, however, Julie realized that
what she wanted and what she professed did not match. Although she championed
marginal students, she found the consistency of the rewards of teaching academic students
life nurturing. She did cherish those few fleeting moments of success with her basic level
students, but the rarity of those moments overshadowed their intensity. Trying to balance
the priorities of a son, a new boyfriend and a difficult teaching schedule caused her great
stress. By the end of the practicum she was close to broken; so exhausted and frustrated
Julie was profoundly disturbed by the philosophical dilemma she discovered within
herself. That uneasiness is a sign of care and will serve as a dialectic for continued growth.
Her struggle is a testament to all student teachers who choose the road less traveled—the
one that leads to the urban high school. More than anything she wanted to make a
CONCLUSION
provided me with the raw data which I shaped using categorizing and contextualizing
strategies. From the thousands of excerpts which I gathered from the interviews, I
A. Thematic Retrospective
Intimacy with the interviews of the participants is the fundamental requirement for
thematic analysis. Listening to the tapes and studying the transcripts over and over
eventually yield a sense of knowing. Once a category has been identified, the next step is
to group the excerpts which best exemplify the participants' feelings or reactions within that
category. Studying the group of excerpts then yields a theme—a thread of understanding
Many themes can run through a work. One of the tasks of the researcher is to identify
those that are pervasive. In order to provide a balanced perspective, I identified the
dominant themes which ran through each issue. Only the category of discipline, perhaps
the most difficult aspect of urban student teaching, yielded three. Although each has been
examined individually within the chapters, I list the themes together here to provide a
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see another dimension of people. In many comedies and cartoons, the villain is portrayed
as a one-dimensional character-and for good reason. You are allowed to see only one side
of him so that the playwright can control the way you feel about him or her. After all, how
can you feel the pleasure of good over evil if you discover that the villain had lost his or her
To avoid engendering these mixed feelings in the audience, the playwright includes only
those details necessary to produce what he or she wishes you to perceive. Provided only
with negative facts and impressions, the audience has little choice but to give in to the will
Almost always the old, rich, unattractive, lecherous, easily deceived, jealous husband is
duped by his young, sensuous wife who is attracted to a young, dashing but often penniless
suitor. When the old man is swindled out of his fortune and his wife, the audience
laughs—thinks he deserves it. When the wife is in the arms of her passionate lover, the
audience feels good. It's perfectly acceptable to have an affair-to cuckold such a buffoon
and rub it in his face . It's all in fun. But when you paint people deliberately for effect,
Human beings are complex and contradictory. They defy categorization no matter how
often we attempt to do just that. We judge people from the minute we see them. The
cliche that first impressions are lasting is not without wisdom. How then, faced with our
own inability to withhold judgement, faced with our own moral values and preconceived
interview someone and capture the spirit of that person? How do we, as we try to elicit
meaning from our participants, prevent ourselves from directing the play? From
contributing to the results-from becoming part of someone's story rather than the reporter
of it?
Sometimes I laughed when I typed a transcript. Sometimes I saw the great sadness in
people's lives, and I shared someone's pain. Sometimes I recognized a similar experience,
and the story I was listening to produced feelings in me dredged up from an entirely
different story—my story—and it was difficult to separate the two. I was often not even
sure if I should have tried to separate the two, for in doing that I might have lost the
I am inextricably a part of this storytelling process. It is my role to free the story from
the participant—to indulge in his or her reverie and to get that on tape and eventually on
paper. Once recorded, the moment is preserved in time. Viewed later, I can work with it,
try to capture it in the sense that it was given, try to make sense of it in the context of a
study and yet keep its identity in tact. It's almost like trying to assimilate to another culture
Are we allowed to like our participants? To dislike them? How can we not help to at
least occasionally feel anger or happiness or surprise or disgust with what we hear? How
do we stop ourselves from digging for a purpose; do we want to flesh out the possibility
that this person is really racist? sexist? classist? Is that our purpose—or is that none of our
business? Won’t the words show that anyway? But we pick the words that go into the
final report. Are we not then responsible for reporting them in a way which will produce a
Aesthetic distance, a term I use often in the classroom, is something required here I
think. Perhaps something like Peter Elbow’s idea of initially immersing yourself in your
writing—pouring out your thoughts—spilling your guts without the worry of mechanical
error or someone correcting—perhaps that is the way to interview and transcribe? Get it all,
and then refine it. Be fair to the participant. What does that mean? Should we avoid
embarrassing our participant at all costs? Are not the participants' words a fair
representation of what the person thinks or feels? If we present them in a way to avoid the
person embarrassment, will we actually be doing him or her a disservice? If we do not take
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the person's words out of context-if we do not deliberately try to script a play-can not the
I am in awe of people who can fluidly talk for hours about themselves—about their
experiences, but I wonder if what they are saying is what they are all about or what they
want me to think they are all about. The difference between public and private voice is not
a concept 1 take lightly. In asking participants to sign a consent form, I asked them to allow
me to use what they said for my purposes—even though I gave them certain inalienable
rights to remove whatever they found unacceptable. Does not that act of signing invalidate
every response because it takes on a contractual nature? Would the dialogue be the same if
How often have we been involved in discussions or arguments when someone says
"and this is off the record" or "May I speak off the record." " What if you said "No,
everything you say is on the record." Would that stop it ?—or "OK Til let you speak off the
record, and then Til let you tell me what you don't want me to repeat, and I will honor
that." Will that make the response more honest? And what about emotion, anger or joy?
When people are in a state of high emotion, is what they are saying indicative of the truth
or just what they are feeling in the heat of the moment, and what is my obligation in terms
say "I understand, I really understand what this person is saying." It brings me moments of
"this is just a bunch of baloney- it says nothing; it says only what the participant felt
By then gleaning certain passages, I automatically, no matter how good of a job I do, I
then I take passages from different participants and attempt to find some kind of thematic
pattern so that I can make some discovery—some sociological observation that is of value to
others who are observers of humanity—but am I not even further desecrating the truth of
their original interview? Am I not taking the original shape of the interview and
hammering it into the form which I will use for my purposes? Am I creating something
new or re-creating something which was uttered in some succinct, understandable study?
How much of an interview is bias free from the needs of the participant? If the
participant is feeling guilt about his or her bias, what then does he or she say when the
issue comes up? Is it fair for me to assume that his or her bias—that all bias is wrong
—when I can never relive the experiences of that person and feel what he or she feels, see
what he or she sees. Am I not shoving my own sense of fairness— my own bias—down his
or her throat? The ideas of objectivity and subjectivity are old journalistic dilemmas that
Clearly it demands that I reveal information about myself that will at least let the reader
the heart of the interview. I therefore am of equal importance with my participant. In fact
I may be of more importance because I become the center of the process as I am the
denominator, and I bring to this process the means of fulfilling the equation. It is I who
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will ultimately provide the meaning through the words of all participants-through a
synthesis of what they had to say filtered through my brain, my feelings, my purpose.
Knowing this, it was my obligation to at least be aware of that and to be honest about it
so that I could proceed without fear of messing up. I needed freedom to interview—to ask
questions that opened up the conversation—to gather as much information about every
topic as possible and later on-to throw out the garbage-the petty-the fancy—and keep the
meat-the essence of the argument-the distilled product. Ah the distilled product-is it the
same as the original? Is gasoline the same as crude oil? Is it a fair representation? We
know where gasoline comes from, but is the final product like the final product of our
interview? How can we make the original useful? Is the original useful in its crude form?
What can you do with it? Unless you put it in some form that can provide humanity with
some kind of service, it loses its utility—and its value—regardless how magnificent or huge
document that sheds some light on the way people make meaning of their experience?
And if so, what does that mean for the rest of us? Do we extrapolate from there and say
that we, as human beings, might make the same meaning in a similar situation?
I hope I did justice to this process, to my participants and to myself as I continued along
this difficult, time consuming trail. It was figuring out how to "do justice" that often eluded
me. Perhaps it is possible to capture a small piece of time that has a smattering of whatever
the truth is in it. Certainly it is different from quantitative research whose rigidity causes
the data to fit a shape rather than the data suggesting the shape.
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Are the words of an interview like water? Should they take the shape of the vessel they
are placed in? The water doesn't change; the shape of the vessel puts it in a different
context. Do we still say "That's water. I know what it is.” Or do we say something else
about the fact that the water is in a tall, frosty glass. Does that change our impression of
the water— or simply give us another dimension of it? So too with the interview. We see
another dimension of experience and the way that one person in conjunction with the
interviewer makes meaning of it. That is our job-to report the meaning of that experience
to a public which is not obligated to draw any other meaning than that this is the way this
interviewing, I had to believe in the legitimacy of the method and the appropriateness of the
method to my topic. I also had to believe in my intellect, that part of me which early on
raised the myriad of questions I now report here. It is in fact the dialectic formed by my
produce a work which I truly believe is representative of the way my participants made
From the first interview to the last, I let the conversations develop naturally. Before
each interview began I casually chatted with each participant about topics in the news or
other topics unrelated to education until a level of comfort was reached. When the taping
began I boosted their confidence by starting with easy-to-answer factual questions such as
"Where were you bom?" before proceeding to open ended questions such as "What was it
like living in a rural community?" I watched their eyes and their expressions. I listened
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carefully for changes in tone, speed and pitch. I was careful never to squelch enthusiasm,
even if I had heard enough about a particular topic. I did not judge the importance of what
they said immediately; everything they said was important to them and therefore to me.
I nodded only to imply my understanding but never to agree or disagree with. 1 avoided
proffering my opinions about anything, but I made sure to probe diplomatically until I
understood their positions clearly. I often summed up what I thought they meant about
particular topics and asked if my summation were accurate. I made no subject taboo nor
did I wince at language I deemed inappropriate or obscene. At the end of every interview I
asked if there were anything at all that my participants felt needed to be clarified or added
to the conversations. 1 asked them to reflect on our dialogue and gave them the
I consciously put aside any emotional feelings I had about specific topics and
deliberately treated each topic equally. I never assumed that my credentials or experience
The length of the interviews created many opportunities to discuss topics which
By the time I was ready to cut and paste excerpts, I had listened to and studied the
transcripts so closely I could recognize the speaker and the context without needing a
reference. I came to know my participants. Although excerpts are clustered into categories
and analyzed in the light of thematic considerations, they are never used for a purpose
which would belie their original context; that is essential in maintaining my participants' and
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my integrity. I have not created something new. I have reconstructed what my participants
said and put it in a format which sheds collective light on what it is like to student teach in
presenting her story in her own words. Because of the spatial and temporal context which
profile development offers, the tapestry of her life was carefully interweaved with her
student teaching experience at Leighton High School. The perspective gained by viewing
the urban student teaching experience through her eyes is indeed phenomenal and should
I have done so equally. I more fervently pray that I have been fair, honest and judicious in
presenting my findings. Just as a grain of sand embeds itself in an oyster, so too did the
uneasiness about this phenomenological process embed itself in me. Eventually the
dialectic created by the grain and the oyster's efforts to deal with it produces a pearl of
Including the words, "Neophytes in Neverland," in the title of this dissertation was far
more than an attempt to come up with a catchy phrase to attract attention. Student
teachers are indeed novices, and urban high school practicum sites are certainly as
mysterious to them as any mythical kingdom. The question around which this study is
centered is "What is it like to student teach in an urban high school today?" In presenting
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the results of my research, I hope I have partially answered that question by reconstructing
the experience of the fifteen student teachers who participated in this project. In addition
student teaching literature informs various aspects of my study will more clearly illuminate
my findings.
My study supports the contention that teacher education programs have little influence
on student teachers' previous beliefs (Goodman, 1988; Hollingsworth, 1989; Lortie, 1975;
McNeil, 1986; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). In dealing with students in urban high
schools, most of my participants proceeded in one of two ways: 1) delving into their past
(working in the content area they love; fostering individual friendships with students;
providing reinforcement and positive feedback to students; serving as a role model for
students); 2) delving into their past and avoiding experiences which they remember as
students, humiliating students in front of others, discriminating against students on the basis
In focusing on the liberalizing role of the university, my study agrees with those
researchers who view it as a myth (Goodman, 1986; Tabachnick, Popkewitz, & Zeichner,
1979). With very few exceptions, my participants found their university training: 1)
redundant and overly reflective of critical aspects of teaching; 2) sparse and insufficiently
reflective of factual aspects of teaching. Although they acknowledged that the few
methods courses they took did little more than aid them in teaching lessons to large
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numbers of students (Tabachnick, 1980), they complained there were not enough reality
based courses with a hands on approach. Neither were all the effects of the university
washed out by school experience (Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). While factors such as
excessive absenteeism may have prevented the use of cooperative learning (a university
taught methodology), for example, most of my participants clearly regretted not being able
to utilize it.
In terms of the influence of the practicum, this study was split in supporting the finding
that student teachers work within a finite range of required classroom activities that result
in limited control by the student teacher and limited interaction with students other than
what is related to the task at hand (Tabachnick, Popkewitz, & Zeichner, 1979). In those
cases in which the cooperating teacher backed out almost immediately, student teachers
were given-carte blanche to run the classroom as they saw fit provided they met the general
objectives of the curriculum. Conversely in most of the cases in which the cooperating
teacher stayed actively involved, student teachers had to follow a strict regimen in terms of
activities, assignments and tests and had to adopt the student expectations prescribed by the
Some of the problems associated with the triad (the student teacher, cooperating
teacher, college supervisor) which studies have identified were also reflected in my
findings. Again how actively the cooperating teacher pursued his or her role had much to
the teachings of their university instructors and attributed their practices to their
241
further denigrated the role of their college supervisors by doing so. (Goodlad, 1990). The
assignment of TA's as college supervisors not only supports the finding that the temporary
nature of their position results in their powerlessness to make long term changes (Zeichner,
1992); it also provoked anger and disappointment from student teachers who were unable
to receive adequate support from TA's whose inordinate work loads restricted their
involvement.
frenetically busy educators. In part this accounted for the forgiveness factor displayed by
many of the student teachers who, while resenting a lack of observation and support, were
in awe of the energy and involvement of their mentors. Cooperating teachers did not have
the luxury of adjusted schedules to help fulfill their mentoring duties. This lack of
adequate planning time supports case studies showing that student teachers are denied
Buchmann, 1987).
The dichotomy between the more liberal, democratic framework of university training
and the more custodial, authoritarian framework of urban schools clearly pulls the student
teacher in two directions. My study supports findings that indicate student teachers
experience a significant increase in custodial pupil ideology by the end of the practicum
(Hoy, 1967; Hoy and Rees, 1977). Even my participants who abjured the notion of
discipline modified their stance as their frustration with classroom management increased.
242
Many were advised by faculty members or fellow student teachers to impose more
stringent rules.
Most of the participants in my study did not do their student teaching at clinical sites
and found the quality of their experience dependent on locations which were not
specifically designed to prepare student teachers for teaching (Copeland, 1981). Besides
considerations such as excessive absenteeism, disciplinary problems and, in many cases, the
implementing inquiry-based approaches. The fear of upsetting the fragile balance in the
triad and jeopardizing the availability of the urban high school as a student teaching site
caused considerable tension in some cases among college supervisors and cooperating
issues (Zimpher, DeVoss, & Nott, 1980) such as the student teacher's course selections,
teaching preps and duties. At best it led to limited, critical responses to each other or to
While there were conceptual and structural obstacles to student teacher learning in the
classroom (Zeichner, 1992), they were neither consistent among nor pertinent to all of my
discipline problems. Rather than neglect their own or teachers' practical theories, most
243
were then forced to implement them. While student teachers did reflect on the means of
instruction (the teaching skills and strategies), it was not at the expense of reflecting on the
ends (the value of instruction) nor did their focus on their own teaching cause them to
neglect the consideration of the social conditions in the schools. All were legitimately
sympathetic to the plight of inner city students. Most student teachers were, however,
encouraged to think by themselves and find their own solutions to problems rather than to
Two of the four structural barriers to student teacher learning in the practicum
(Zeichner, 1992) were observable in my study. Student teachers were placed in individual
participants also were affected by the nebulous evaluative roles of their college supervisor
and cooperating teacher. Except for two, all of my participants were allowed to select their
practicum sites, however, and all selected multicultural settings which resulted in excellent
My study adds to the body of current student teaching literature by employing in-depth
made meaning of their urban high school practicum experience. Rather then focusing
specifically on one issue or one relationship within the urban arena, I discussed a wide
analysis of each of these areas as well as a panoramic thematic analysis of the entire study.
The result is a dissertation which provides greater understanding of what it is like to student
D. Recommendations
school and what I have learned in my doctoral program, I am, like many of the student
teachers in my study, affected by the pull of two distinctly different and sometimes
for the past four years, I know how important it is to implement change based on sound
research. Because I work in the midst of a complex urban high school, I know how
progress.
New teachers will bring with them new energy and new ideas. Our obligation as
teacher educators is to give them the best possible preparation not only to survive in the
world of urban education but to flourish in it and to improve it. While I am not advocating
1) Universities and colleges which have not done so already must work their certification
programs around the schedules of the high schools in which they place student teachers.
The semester setup in most universities and colleges is simply not in sync with the quarterly
setup in most high schools. A two year program would be required, the first year devoted
to coursework and the prepracticum, the second year to the practicum and follow up
courses.
245
2) In the first year there should be two required courses on issues in urban education.
Topics would include race, gender, attendance, discipline, grading, tracking and critical
pedagogy. Both sides of the tracking issue should be presented evenly. Under gender
issues the topic of machismo should be a primary area of concentration. Hispanic, Anglo,
African American and Asian American students from urban high schools should be
recruited as consultants to discuss cultural differences, explain street language and break
down communication barriers. An urban high school teacher should co-teach the class
with a university instructor as Haberman (1988) suggests. Student teachers should develop
a portfolio of at least twelve one-period, lesson plans in their content areas which they can
3) Student teachers should have the opportunity to observe and work with the suggested
recommend a team teaching project to build camaraderie and ease the student teacher into
difficulties of language acquisition for students whose native language is other than English.
5) In the second year one semester should be devoted to urban teaching. It would be
which focuses on the problems encountered in the practicum. This course would also
require further observations of teachers from a post practicum perspective. The ten week
246
practicum should fall within a marking period at the school site. It is essential that student
university-based preparation should occur within the urban public schools and that courses
should be taught on site by university faculty and teachers from the school site.
6) In the second year one semester should be devoted to suburban teaching. It would be
site which focuses on the problems encountered in the practicum. This course would also
require further observations of teachers from a post practicum perspective. The ten week
practicum should fall within a marking period at the school site. It is essential that student
I applaud Goodlad's contention (1991) that teaching theory first and hoping students see
its relationship to practice after should be restructured by putting the analysis of practice
7) Student teachers should be paid a reasonable weekly or bi-monthly stipend for each
practicum they teach. In most professions apprentices are paid for their work. With less
financial pressure on them and the knowledge that their work is of value, student teachers
would reach a new level of confidence and competence. Funding would come from the
a mentor certificate. Most of the cooperating teachers in this study and most of the
teachers I know who have served as cooperating teachers have never undergone training
247
for working with a student teacher. Because most of them are good teachers, they
somehow get by but not nearly as effectively as they could. Teachers who have
teachers.
10) Cooperating teachers should have their teaching load reduced by one preparation to
allow for parallel planning time with their student teacher. This would also reduce the
amount of correcting the cooperating teacher has to do allowing more time for observation
11) The cost of reducing the cooperating teacher’s schedule by one preparation period
should be picked up by the state (if the student teacher is enrolled in a public university) or
12) Each high school should publish an informational brochure for potential student
teachers describing the condition and setup of the physical plant. This would include AV
resources, computer labs, library resources, room utilization, availability of texts and
parking.
13) A copy of the curriculum, texts, faculty and student handbooks should be provided
for student teachers at least ten weeks prior to the beginning of the practicum.
14) Student teachers should be required to teach three classes per day plus be assigned
duties such as homeroom and cafeteria. The length of their work day should be the same
15) A consistent policy concerning in-class observation by the cooperating teacher should
be established. No student teacher should be totally on his or her own within one week
16) College supervisors should have had some experience teaching in secondary schools.
17) Teaching Assistants who serve as college supervisors should have a schedule which
allows them adequate time for the number of charges they are responsible for.
18) High schools should delegate one administrator or teacher as the central coordinator
for student teaching to avoid the confusion caused by having to deal with a multitude of
19) Lastly I strongly advocate a unilateral change in the retirement system which would
provide incentives for early retirement and create positions for new teachers before we lose
The myriad of issues brought up in this dissertation supports the need for further study
1) Of the many difficult problems identified by my participants in this study, the most
critical academic issue may be how best to help urban students whose native language is
Bilingual Education and replace it with a total immersion program. My experience has
taught me that most bilingual students who stay in an E.S.L. program for four years
perform well when mainstreamed into the regular program. The fourth year concentrates
on learning idiomatic expressions, analyzing literature and polishing writing skills. But
249
cutbacks have forced urban school systems to mainstream students as soon as possible,
some within one or two years, thus creating a problem for teachers and student teachers as
well. More comparative studies should be undertaken to identify the kinds of difficulties
experienced by bilingual students who mainstream in one, two, three, four or more years.
2) One of the mandates of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act (1993) was the
elimination of the basic track. At Lawrence High School students who are ready to
mainstream have historically had tremendous difficulty succeeding in upper level English
literature. With the exception of those bilingual students who have an extraordinary
capacity for language acquisition, most bilingual students found that taking lower level
English classes initially was a more secure and comfortable way to make the transition.
Beginning in September of 1995 all public high schools in Massachusetts must have
eliminated the basic track. That leaves few options for bilingual students who are
mainstreaming. Studies which might prove useful would involve interviewing urban
teachers at the end of the school year to determine whether or not they had to make major
bilingual students who were forced to mainstream at higher levels. Student teachers who
do their urban practicum during this time period would also be affected. Interviews with
them should focus on the difficulties they experienced with students who have language
acquisition problems. Interviews of both the bilingual students affected by this change and
the other students in class who might be affected by changes in the teacher's methodology
3) A study comparing student teachers who are exposed to an urban pedagogy and those
that are not should be undertaken. Student teachers would fill out questionnaires on the
major issues discussed in this dissertation and be interviewed prior to the beginning of the
urban program. The questionnaire and the interview would focus on the student teachers'
perception of the importance of these issues, their expectations of the effect these issues
will have on their teaching, the way they plan to handle them and their confidence in then-
ability to handle them. Only the experimental group would participate in urban studies.
At the conclusion of the urban practicum all student teachers would fill out
questionnaires and be interviewed a second time. The focus would be identical to the first
but from a retrospective point of view. The researchers would then study the pre and post
concerning each of the urban issues. Finally the results of the experimental group would
be compared to the results of the non experimental group. This should reveal whether or
not exposure to an urban pedagogy made a significant difference in the way student
teachers perceived specific urban issues and how that perception affected their ability to
deal with those issues in the urban practicum. This study should also point out which
longitudinal study would need to be undertaken Following the careers of the same set of
participants over a three-year span would generate new information and add a new
that need to be answered. How many participants decided to teach, and what caused them
251
to stay or leave? Which participants went on to teach in an urban location and why? Did
participants feel they were adequately prepared for their jobs through their university and
practicum experience? What areas of preparation would participants suggest need more
5) Any worthwhile study generates more questions than answers. Although the cost and
difficulties of an even longer study would probably make it unfeasible, more questions
could be asked and more answers generated. The contention that urban teachers should
have a "truncated career" (Haberman, 1988, p. 23) of five to eight years because of the
job satisfaction of those participants that went into an urban location and those that went
into a suburban location might provide new student teachers with invaluable insight. My
hope is that this study will serve as a springboard for future research in urban education.
In reflecting on the themes that run through the many issues that affect the urban
practicum, I could not help but feel overwhelmed by the awesome task that teacher
educators, teachers and student teachers face in the urban arena. The obstacles we must
panoramic theme of this dissertation. With all the questions that remain unanswered, I do,
however, know one thing for sure; if America's cities are to survive, it will be the public
In the early seventies Lawrence was the scene of racial rioting culminating in national
headlines that screamed "Lawrence Is Burning.” It was the Lawrence School System, its
students, teachers and administrators who banded together, faced the issue and provided
the city's residents with a model of tolerance and harmony. It was the Lawrence School
System that saved the city. The job of teacher educators today is to save America's cities
by furnishing urban school systems with new teachers who are prepared to meet the
challenges they face and, who by surmounting the insurmountable, will erase the
panoramic theme of this dissertation. When that occurs, I will be happy to rewrite my
concluding chapter.
G. Epilogue
During the third interview, I asked my participants to come up with their own personal
image or phrase or sentence that could answer the question, "What is it like to student
teach in an urban high school today?” A long pause preceded each answer; it is a request
that requires a reaction from the heart tempered by a rationale from the mind. The image
which Monica Pellante chose transcended this study; her rationale left me spellbound. I
Monica: Student teaching is like being on a roller coaster. I dont really like roller
coasters. The anticipation of coming up and up and up gets stuck in my belly, and
then—the descent; you go up for two seconds, you come down for two seconds, you go
really fast, and your belly ends up in your throat. You go around, and sometimes you
do loops, and you go around, and then it's over, and this—this is just like one big mental
roller coaster. You build up, and then you come down. I like it, and I hate it. It's like
roller coasters. People love the thrill of it, and they love—obey—that feeling. Who likes
that? I dont really like that feeling where you're being sucked so fast and pushed down
so quickly that your cheeks go up, and your mouth goes open, and your hair stands
straight up. I dont know anyone who really likes that.
Bill: Most people on roller coasters end up going back on again.
Monica: Yeah.
APPENDIX
Dear Colleague,
It is with great interest and deep commitment that I am asking you to allow me to
conduct three ninety-minute, audio-taped interviews with you as part of my research for
my doctoral program in education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The focus
of my inquiry is what it is like to student teach in an inner-city high school. Part of my
interest stems from my twenty-three years of teaching in this kind of school setting. Your
experience will help me to understand the complex nature of this environment. Parts of
this interview will be used in my dissertation and shared with my committee. There is no
monetary compensation for your participation. All interviewees in this process will remain
anonymous, and all names of persons, schools, school districts and cities mentioned will be
replaced with pseudonyms in transcripts. You have the right to withdraw from the
interview process at any point up to two weeks after the third interview as well as the right
to review any portion of the tapes and to request removal of any portion of the tapes that
you do not wish to share. You also have the right to review the transcripts from the
interviews and to request removal of any portion of the transcripts that you do not wish to
share. This request must be made within two weeks of your review of the transcripts.
Your decision to participate or not to participate in this interview will be acknowledged
with equal respect. Please indicate your decision by checking the appropriate box below. If
you answer in the affirmative, please sign your name, and fill in today's date. Thank you
for your assistance.
Sincerely,
William Compagnone
yes_no_date_
participant's signature_
interviewer's signature__
254
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