Education in America will not succeed through improved test scores and teaching students to memorize facts. Rather, it will triumph when students connect in democratic and respectful relationships with their teachers and feel a part of something larger.
So says Deborah Meier, who has spent more than four decades working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer and educational advocate; and is the founder and teacher-director of a network of highly successful public schools in New York City that are considered exemplary models of urban school reform.
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COLLABORATION IS KEY: Deborah Meier, a New
York City public schools educator and EMU's John
W. Porter Distinguished Chair in Urban Education,
makes a point during her lecture at Roosevelt
Auditorium Feb. 7. Her presentation was called
"Educating for What? The Struggle for Democracy
in Education." |
"If we took care of everyone's dental needs, we would increase (student) test scores more than if we teach them to read," said Meier, before lacing her comments with knowing humor. "Imagine how hard it is to concentrate when your teeth hurt. If students weren't in pain, they'd get more questions right."
Resembling a caring grandmother with a world-weary quick wit, Meier presented "Educating for What? The Struggle for Democracy in Education" during her Porter Chair lecture before a packed Roosevelt Auditorium crowd Feb. 7.
Meier is one of this year's John W. Porter Distinguished Chairs in Urban Education. The John W. Porter Distinguished Chair in Urban Education is named in honor of EMU's former president and state superintendent of public instruction. It is the first endowed chair in the College of Education. The C.S. Mott Foundation and the MacGregor Foundation largely funded the chair. The chair is designed to actively expand the University's role in urban school districts in Michigan, with an emphasis on school/community relations.
Meier is the recipient of the MacArthur Award and many honorary degrees. She also is an author of numerous books, including "The Power of Their Ideas" and "In Schools We Trust."
Meier said today's public schools, by and large, are more akin to prison than anything resembling education.
"What is so important that we have to incarcerate students for 12 to 16 years?" Meier asked. "Effectively, we have a captive audience that has no effective power except to sabotage us, to make trouble."
The more prestigious the course, the less likely it will offer any practical real-world use, she offered.
"No employer I know cares what year the Treaty of Trent was signed. Yet, we tell kids it's very essential. Essential for what?" Meier scoffed.
To make her point, she said teachers teach students to write academically -- a skill they will have to unlearn when they write in their chosen career field. And while schools teach the importance of being a democratic society, there are no means to learn how such a society works. Translated, many teachers teach a subject they have not experienced or administrative politics favor cookie-cutter approaches to education.
"Democracy needs habits that survive stress. The time when we're in danger is when we're under stress," Meier said. "Isn't it true? The principal says, 'I'm making a decisions' to the teachers. What does that say to the teachers? That tells us more about democracy than what is being learned in the classrooms."
That scenario could be reversed if parents were provided more time to come to schools and help make decisions about what subjects and issues teachers should be stressing to their students.
It would be "akin to jury duty" to give parents time off to come to school, said Meier, who added that kids making learning their passion -- not the teachers -- is key.
"I think our reformers think if they could get everybody to act like ants, well...I don't want that kind of utopia," she said. "We'll continue to dumb down politics as well as our schools if we let those who run them make decisions without talking to those they teach."
"For years, Deborah has fought for an authentic accountability of public education," said Valerie Polakow, an EMU professor of teacher education. "She urges parents to have a say in public education."
Noguera coming to campus during March
For the third consecutive year, the College of Education has gone with a speaker series format rather than name one scholar for the 2007-2008 academic year. Pedro Noguera, a professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, presents "The Schools We Need: The Limits and Possibilities of Using Education to Transform Impoverished Communities" March 13-14.
Jean Anyon, professor of social and educational policy, City University of New York, was on campus last November and presented "The Underfunding of Urban Education: Problems and Possibilities."
