Two years ago teaching kindergarten, a hispanic girl in my
classroom, when the initial assessment was completed, had the lowest
score in the class. She was also the only child in the class who could
not write her name. She recognized no numbers or letters.
She spent the first few weeks walking from center to center,
rarely interacting with the students. She loved being read to and
enjoyed echoing the words at the end of sentences.
I asked her early on, "Would you like to learn to write your name?"
"No," she replied and walked away.
For several months she would not respond in the affirmative when
I asked her if she would like to learn specific skills. Talking with her
parents, they said, "Don't ask. Tell her she has to."
I did. She still said no.
And then one day she said that she was ready to learn how to
write her name.
At the end of the kindergarten year she had made lots of
progress, but still in standard assessments had the lowest scores in the
class.
The next year, the first grade teacher spoke to me after the
first month of school. She noted that the little girl spent much of her
time just walking around the classroom watching and would not engage in
any activities.
I related how kindergarten has progressed. The teacher wanted to
refer the little girl to special education. I suggested not, suggesting
instead that we were looking at a very particular learning style and that
we figure out ways to accommodate her, rather that making her accommodate
the schoo. After all, the school was there for her, not vice versa. The
adults through their positions of power and knowledge could use their
expertise to learn what the little girl needed rather than vice versa.
I am happy to report that at the end of first grade the little
girl was reading at a beginning second grade level.
I don't think I would have been as successful with her if I had
told her that she had to sit down with me and learn specific skills and
that it was all for her own good.
Now, when I'm talking about coercion in education, I'm talking
about forcing children to do the accommodating and the changing and the
integrating of practices that are foreign to them, unknown to them, and
not recognizing their own individual methods of constructing their realities.
When I did work with the little girl, I utilized multiple direct
instructional practices. However, it was with her consent and control of
the learning situation. I think that we all want to exercise our own
consent and control over what we learn.
Yes, while we are learning it is painful, as Eva has described.
But that is a pain that we willingly accept and part of the process of life.
Phillip
pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu