Education

I became a champion of education reform after my tumultuous experience in schools I attended. Growing up on an Indian reservation in Arizona and attending public schools, I encountered inconsistent educational experiences, apathy amongst teachers, lack of resources and an assumption that Indian kids just didn't do well. While I was blessed by wonderful teachers, amazing guidance and mentors, there were often as many factors and forces working against my trajectory towards completion and advancement. Professor Bryan Brayboy once remarked that for every one successful Native American graduate student, there was 1,000 Indian kids forsaken in the system. In spite of this environment, I somehow managed to thrive. It has been a humbling experience to work with youth in various capacities, and I think very deeply about the forces at work which contribute to students being pushed out of schools and the loss of their potential educational experiences. I wonder about issues of systemic oppression and traumatic acts which work to rob youth of their inspiration to learn. This is not meant to blame teachers, or schools, however. This critique is meant to challenge the ethos of the business model and the industrial paradigm we use in education. Although teachers, parents, students and schools as of late are concerned with the movement towards standardization, objective measurement, and metrics, the influence of business models and values in educational policy can be seen quite early on, as far back as the early 1900s (Callahan, 1962). At work in this value system is the privileging of concepts like " efficiency " and " business " and " earning ability. " These conceptions were espoused by policy makers, politicians, leading business men, and even members of the National Education Association itself. Conference proceedings from the (N.E.A.) meetings are telling as indicators of the move towards pragmatic, practical education, with an underlying " anti-intellectualism " which was given voice in phrases admonishing " mere scholastic education " or " mere book learning " (Callahan, 1962, 8). Callahan notes the impact of industrial values and philosophy as effectively shaping educational policy at multiple levels, such as in the account of a speech held during the N.E.A. proceedings of 1908. A superintendent from Illinois commented that learning which was disconnected from economic concerns was education " not worth getting, " saying " a love of learning is praiseworthy; but when this delight in pleasures of learning becomes so intense and absorbing that it diminishes the desire, and the power of earning, it is positively harmful " (Callahan, 1962, p. 10). Callahan's work on the exploring policy maker's infatuation with business values and their penetration into educational reform serves as an excellent paradigm to explore the activities of our schools, school reformers, and provided insight to a question I have been thinking about recently. The question arises out of interviews I conducted with students who participated in a alternative format class I taught, which was my active attempt to destabilize student conceptions of what learning could be. This class attempted to provide a class experience for students which was based in humanizing pedagogy including artistic expression, community building, and recognition of student's lived experience as being central to a fulfilling education. I was often confronted by students. Among the questions, concerns and challenges was how the work we undertook in my class was preparing them for the " real world. " In another instance, a student remarked on her sadness in taking my class because it contrasted so starkly with the " reality " of her other classes. When asked to describe this " reality " or the " real world " of other courses, students described course work including the use of PowerPoint presentations, lectures, little to

Humanizing the " Opposition " When we discuss education, research, and the need to " humanize " those we work and collaborate with, what do we mean? The project of humanization in the social sciences has been a constant one for me, both as overt instruction in my discipline, and as second nature to the ways I carry out the work that I do. This project is both philosophical and operational. It requires a particular perspective on working with people, and the importance of privileging their lived experience and knowledge as being important and relevant. Applied, this involves the careful study and understanding of the relationships we have as researchers to the communities we work with, avoiding old conventions such as referring to our collaborators and community members as " subjects. " The process of humanizing requires seeing first and foremost, the human experience of the individual, and attempting to understand how events of their lives inform their positions. This must be done without judgement, or at the very least, with conscious acknowledgment of biases up front, in the form of positionality statements. Through this, we can work to mitigate problems of bias and stereotype in our analysis. The process of humanizing requires seeing first and foremost, the human experience of the individual, and attempting to understand how events of their lives inform their positions. Several examples demonstrate the problems of interpretation without humanization, where researchers have uncovered implicit, and unchecked bias in speaking with their study populations. Most unfortunately, these researchers were examining teacher attitudes and practices, and lamented the problem of this unchecked bias by teachers towards their students. Ultimately, researchers have shown the ill effects of assuming without checking bias on students, and its impact on their sense of belonging in school, their outcomes, and the perpetuation of deficit discourses of these student populations. It might be surprising to hear that, at one particular session of the American Anthropological Association annual meeting this year in Denver, to recommendation to " humanize " a group of people came as a bit of a shock to me! So it might be surprising to hear that, at one particular session of the American Anthropological Association annual meeting this year in Denver, to recommendation to " humanize " a group of people came as a bit of a shock to me! Dr. Joe Henderson of the University of Delaware made a statement that hit me as both insightful and timely: the need to humanize those who disagree with us. In this case, he was speaking anecdotally of engaging with his conservative family members at Thanksgiving in discussions regarding climate change, global warming, and the consumption of energy. While this probably ought to have been an assumption and a given for me, I was shocked at how surprised I was that someone would need to remind me of the

In our roles as teachers and as parents, we have been privy to the conversations of both teachers and parents. Until recently, however, we did not acknowledge that our view of parental involvement conflicts with the views of many parents. It was not until we began talking with parents in different communities that we were forced to examine our own deeply seated assumptions about parental involvement.

NOTE: Please cite this chapter as follows: Alvermann, DE (2012). Is there a place for popular culture in curriculum and classroom instruction?[The point position]. In AJ Eakle (Ed.), Curriculum and Instruction (Volume 2, pp. 214-220, 227-228).[Volume 2 is part of the series, Debating issues in American education (CJ Russo & AG Osborne, Jr., General Eds.).] Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Is There a Place for Popular Culture in Curriculum and Classroom Instruction? POINT Donna E. Alvermann The University of Georgia Introduction ...