Please create a DOODLE to bring attention to the 50th anniversary of Neil Postman's book TEACHING as a SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY.
When was the last time you saw "subversive activity" as a headline?
------------------------------------------------
This is the set up.
Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death (a critique of our society's response to mass media) and Teaching as a Subversive Activity (a list of suggestions to remove obstacles to learning), comes back as a substitute teacher. Imagine this situation....
It’s been 50 years since Teaching as a Subversive Activity gave teachers suggestions about how to remove obstacles to learning. The author, Neil Postman, is better known for his critiques of mass media (he wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death). Imagine that Postman comes back as a substitute teacher.
------------------------------------------------
The principal at Haverbridge Prep Academy walked down the hallway and peered through the open door of a seminar on English Literature. Inside is a new substitute teacher named Postman who was miraculously revived after he passed away in 2003. The author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity found himself in a world 50 years after the publication of his groundbreaking book (co-authored with Charles Weingartner). He needed to learn about gluten-free foods, the internet, and everything else that has arrived since the turn of the century. Neil Postman 2.0 selected an elite private school to continue his observations about the US system of education.
####
The principal entered the room. Large letters on the whiteboard declared that the class, English 301, would be focusing on the Iliad. A second board announced: “The teacher does not have any answers today,” and “The teacher will answer your question with another question.” There were three students huddled around a textbook in the front of the room. A fourth student was writing words on the board, pausing to receive the next sentence from the group. The rest of the class was in groups of three and four, arguing loudly over questions that didn't appear to have anything to do with Homer's work. The principal found the teacher in the back of the room, listening intently to two students arguing over what appeared to be a discussion of the rights of women in India.
The principal approached the teacher. “Excuse me. Postman, will you be able to stop by my office after your class?”
“Let's talk now, “ Postman replied and turned to a boy ten feet away. “Demetrius, come over here please when you're finished and document the points that Angela is making.”
The principal looked surprised. “But, Mr. Postman, who will be in charge of the classroom?”
“Oh, this class doesn't need me,” Postman declared. “Maria Montessori observed that the students are learning quite nicely without her, which is the highest compliment a teacher can get. How about we talk in the hall?”
Principal: Mister Postman, I have been--
Postman: You can call me Neil.
Principal: --receiving reports about your methods. And I'm somewhat concerned that you perhaps will need some more training or some more time to adapt to our modern methods.
Postman: I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Principal: When we first hired you, I had heard that you were the author of a book about teaching as a conserving activity. Of course we at Haverford prep are very proud of our traditions. We thought your past interests in the humanities would be a valuable addition to our faculty. But I am somewhat confused about the lack of content related to the curriculum in your class. I could see in your class today that there is plenty of discussion, but only a few students appeared to be looking at the assigned textbook. The students at the front of the class were looking through some sort of World War II photo book.
Postman: Actually, that was one of my photo books of the movie Apocalypse Now.
Principal: -- and I'm not quite sure what to make of that statement that “the teacher will have no answers today.”
Postman: That comes from the 12th chapter of the subversive teaching book. I have heard that it is still in print.
Principal: You can imagine that as a principal I have responsibilities that keep me from doing thorough vetting of a new hire, so I will need to find out more about this chapter 12. Until you have completed the Haverbridge teacher orientation, I'm going to request that you stick to the lesson plan that was assigned to you by the teacher who is absent. After you all you are the substitute...
Postman: I spoke about it with Charlie, and he rather liked my approach. But I'm sure we can do something to make sure that the content gets covered.
Principal: Well, please make time in the afternoon after school when Mr. Smith is back in control of his class.
---------------
I imagine that Neil Postman did not last more than a week as a substitute teacher.
Type “Neil Postman” into a search engine and you will get dozens of references to his critiques of mass media. Links to his book Teaching as a Subversive Activity do not come up in a search until the 5th or 6th page of the search. This article was created to raise more attention to Postman’s critiques of schools. More can be found at an online archive at neilpostman.blogspot.com.
This imagined dialog celebrates the 50 years of subversive teaching. If you would like to join an online, ongoing conference (though a blog) to expand on these topics, visit 50YearsofSubverstiveTeaching.blogspot.com.
Steve McCrea
Conference coordinator
Text and Whatsapp +1 954 646 8246
If you would like to join an online, ongoing conference (though a blog) to expand on these topics, visit 50YearsofSubversiveTeaching.
==========
Note to the Reader
***To make this imagined situation work, please go along with the idea that Neil Postman Version 2.0 would make an excellent substitute teacher.
Here are some other excerpts
==========
LINK https://drive.google.
========
In class, try to avoid telling your students
any answers, if only for a few
lessons or days. Do not prepare a lesson plan. Instead, confront your students
with some sort of problem, which might interest them. Then, allow them to
work the problem through without your advice or counsel. Your talk should
consist of questions directed to particular students, based on remarks made
by those students. If a student asks you a question, tell him that you don't
know the answer, even if you do. Don't be frightened by the long stretches of
silence that might occur. Silence may mean that the
students are thinking. Or it may mean that they are growing hostile. The hostility signifies that the
students resent the fact that you have shifted the
burden of intellectual
activity from you to them. Thought is often painful even if you are
accustomed to it. If you are not, it can be unbearable.
FROM CHAPTER 12
==================
Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8
The transformation of schools will begin as soon
as there are enough young teachers who sufficiently despise the crippling environments they are employed to supervise to want to subvert them.
The transformation of schools will begin as soon
as there are enough young teachers who sufficiently despise the crippling environments they are employed to supervise to want to subvert them.
The revolution will begin to be visible when such
teachers take the following steps (many students who have been through the course we have described do not regard these as impractical):
1. Eliminate all conventional tests and testing.
2. Eliminate all courses.
3. Eliminate all requirements.
4. Eliminate all full-time administrators and ad
ministrations.
5. Eliminate all restrictions that confine learners to sitting still in boxes inside of boxes.
We hope that, by now, you are using different criteria to judge what is practical, but if these suggestions still seem impractical to you, we need to
say that the conditions we want to eliminate have not been selected
whimsically. They just happen to be the sources of
the most common obstacles to learning.
No comments:
Post a Comment