Teachers and teacher educators can do this by:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Developing an understanding of teaching and learning as a lifelong process<\/li>\n
- Focusing learning on critical thinking, curiosity, sharing ideas and igniting emotions<\/li>\n
- Relying less on routine, formulaic ways of teaching<\/li>\n
- Focusing less on teaching students to \u201cbank\u201d knowledge<\/li>\n
- Developing a culturally sustaining curriculum that encourages community building, dialogue and democracy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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According to the study, policy makers have instituted a wave of educational standards and increased standardized testing across the board since the 1970s, leaving little room for students and teachers to do anything other than follow prescribed lessons that have reframed education as workforce training.<\/span>\u201cWhen we look at education as if it were a consumer good that we purchase to get something else, we\u2019re thinking of it as a private benefit rather than a public good,\u201d said Burns, who earned the Distinguished Research in Teacher Education Award from the Association of Teacher Educators due to his work on \u201cCountering the Essentialized Discourse of Teacher Education.\u201d The work was published recently in the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u201cThis view of education is very reductive \u2013 it resembles to me a regime of discipline,\u201d he added. \u201cWhat kind of adults will we produce if we\u2019re churning out children like they\u2019re cogs in a machine?\u201d<\/p>\n
Teacher education has failed to consistently challenge that trend and the assumptions behind it, Burns said. Theorists from John Dewey to Paulo Freire have warned that instrumental education ultimately creates adults who lack the critical consciousness necessary for a\u00a0vibrant democracy \u2013 such as empathy, compassion, and commitment to participatory public values.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, states and the federal government have relied on standardized tests to determine school funding and, now, teacher pay.<\/p>\n
Even higher education is not immune. According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 32 states, including Florida, have instituted a performance-based funding model for colleges and universities and five more are in the process of developing a performance-funding system.<\/p>\n
Burns and his colleagues argue that despite 40 years of tougher, punitive standards, increased data collection, and the marginalization of teachers, it\u2019s not too late to move away from what they call the \u201cWal-Marting of teacher education.\u201d<\/p>\n
To bring the educational system back into focus, the researchers call on teachers and teacher educators to publicly criticize the minimalist and flawed assumptions they say have driven education policy.<\/p>\n
In Miami-Dade County, there\u2019s already a shift taking place. For example, the school district\u2019s superintendent has cut back on more than 300 exams. Nationally, President Barack Obama has called for testing to be capped at 2 percent of classroom time.<\/p>\n
Burns, for one, is helping his graduate and undergraduate students develop the mindset of being part of a holistic teaching and learning environment where students can have more opportunities for reflection, inquiry and self-directed learning that inspires creativity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I do in my classroom is use a pedagogy of counter-narrative,\u201d he said. \u201cWe devote time to discussing how my students view themselves as teachers, what their values are, what their larger social role will be \u2013 but this will be hard work for them to continue once they enter their own classrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll be under pressure from their schools, and they\u2019re being evaluated by the state, which will use \u2018metrics of accountability\u2019 that have nothing to do with truly educating a child,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n