Group Discussion: Bethanne, Emme, Ivette, Nate and Paola

During our group’s discussion last class, in our response to Bartolome’s text, we struggled with the question: What should we be learning in graduate school if it’s not “best practices” and teaching methods? As I was reading Kumashiro’s text, I kept thinking back to our conversation last week. This article illuminated radical viewpoints about the value of graduate school for teachers.

            Revisiting the conversation from last week about the value of graduate school and ideas about what we as futures teachers should learn, have your thoughts, feelings, and opinions changed? How do you react to the statement made in the article that: “the fast-track alternative certification programs provide ‘the blueprint for the new civil rights movement” (p. 57). Not only do some people hold the stance that alternative certification programs are valuable, some argue that graduate school is irrelevant and can even be detrimental: “Therefore, ending teacher education would be removing the very thing that has the potential to change ‘common sense’ in teaching and, in so doing, to better prepare teachers to teach our increasingly diverse student population” (p. 57) This argument counters the reason we are all currently in graduate school. Would you make a counter argument to this bold statement?

Kumashiro later looks at how the curriculum oppresses groups of students while privileging others. How do we change the curriculum so it does not teach a “particular racial consciousness that privileges Whiteness and White American culture and identity”? (p. 62). How do we create a curriculum that teaches a diverse population of students to understand and celebrate different cultures and identities? How do we do this on a countrywide level and how do we do this on a personal level in our individual classrooms? Connecting back to earlier questions, should these conversations be required for graduate school education programs?