Action Research: Finding Self While Finding “Other”
Question: Do Mexican students understand the global impact of their regional art, the importance of environmental awareness and the empowerment potential of English language proficiency?
Secondary Question:
Does understanding of one “other” culture inform ELL/ESL cultural curriculum development and delivery?
What makes a great teacher? Are they born? Are they made? Do master teachers hold truth? Do they “tell” this truth to their students? Schools in the United States come from a tradition of what is called instructivism– teachers told their truth- students memorized the truth of their teachers. This worked very well until the student moved to the next teacher, with a different contextual journey and therefore a different truth.
Currently, many schools in the United States have embraced constructivism – teachers deliver multiple (and hopefully divergent) data points – and students construct their OWN truth.
Which theoretical approach will help our schools across the United States meet their AYP bench mark. Yes, the field of education is equally prolific at inventing their acronyms as any other profession field. AYP= Annual Yearly Progress.
What Comes Next?
As the United States approaches the Caucasoid tipping point, purportedly projected to be in the next 20 years, the reign (some would characterize as terror) of the Western European cultures as power brokers will come to a conclusion.
FACT: Approximately 65 percent of the population are visual learners.
FACT: The brain processes visual information 60,000 faster than text.
FACT: 90 percent of information that comes to the brain is visual.
FACT: 40 percent of all nerve fibers connected to the brain are linked to the retina.
FACT: Visual aids in the classroom improve learning by up to 400 percent. (Author)
Paradigm Worldviews
The Fascinating Deconstruction of the History of the Paradigm Charts.
Back in the olden times, during my doctoral training, I read many, many books on the history and philosophy of education (yes, back in the days when scholars did their research by reading ink on paper). As I journeyed from book to book, from writer to writer, from scholar to scholar I kept reading what looked like the same teaching and learning models, strategies and techniques but identified by different names.
As I dug deeper and deeper I came to realize that the different terms DID describe the same teaching and learning models, strategies and techniques. Why does the field of education keep creating new words to describe the same teaching and learning models, strategies and techniques? Do you detect a repeating refrain? I did ; /.
The answers are quite simple, really. Yes, there are TWO answers. 1.) Ph.D. candidates, in order to earn the degree, must discover new knowledge. As the old saying goes, “ There is nothing new under the sun”. So… how do you discover new knowledge which is not there? I know that you smartie students of mine have already guessed the answer. Yes! You are correct! That aspiring new scholar creates a new word to discover an old practice! 2.) Subsequently, when that new scholar joins the “academy” they are motivated to supplement their salary (yes, my dear reader, college professors make less money than a 2nd grade teacher who has been in the class room for the same length of time).Professors have only one thing to sell – knowledge. People are not inclined to pay for something they already have so…. you guessed it….. they create more new words to describe their newest magic bullet which will save our educational system!
Coming to the realization that many of these words were synonyms did not help me all that much as I struggled to organize the plethora of data focusing on how people have historically gone about teaching and learning.
Finally, I started to organize the theories, theorists, research models, theoretical bases and the methods, procedures and techniques employed by these different paradigms/worldviews and the infamous Paradigm Deconstruction Charts were born. I did sell the use of these charts to Allyn and Bacon for $10,000.00 so I guess they thought them useful. I DO feel a little guilty about this development but I allow myself a little chuckle reflecting on the fact that my effort to organize the creation of all the self-serving linguistic excess allowed me to sell THAT knowledge ; ) Is this poetic justice? Let’s look that up. Whoops, I mean ask Dr. Google.
A particularly insightful deconstruction summary of the 3 P’s Mike Ofstedal:
“ Using definitions from the Paradigm Deconstruction Chart (Bridges, n.d.),
empiricism would now not be directed toward objective truths, but instead
directed toward truths that are evident to any particular culture and any
time in history; and for all intents and purposes cease to exist in its current
form. The interpretive paradigm would now rule as the overriding ethos of
thought, as integrating our culture and social interactions as the basis for
knowledge would be so ingrained in our young people, it would become the unquestioned norm. The critical paradigm would still be present, as it would
serve to hold the interpretive paradigm in check, and always strive to see the
underlying aspects of any cultural decision or thought”.
Three Educational Paradigm Models
As organized by me over the last 25 years:
Empirical/Analytical Paradigm. Also called: Objective – Quantitative – Deductive – Normative – Positivist-Authoritarian This worldview believes that you can explain-predict-control. Scientists see the world from this perspective. 1. Cause and effect is real and can explain the world 2. Research is context-free 3. Believes in detached role of observer 4. Uses statistical analysis 5. Generalizes from the specific 6. Reality exists and can be predicted 7. Investigation is neutral 8.Theory and Practice are separate 9. Subject / Object relationship 10. Aristotle, Locke, Hume
Interpretive/Symbolic Paradigm Also called: Qualitative – Subjective – Inductive – Existentialist – Non-Authoritarian This worldview is idiomatic and believes in nonstatistical interpretations of events. It values individual or specific observations and seeks to understand rather than to generalize into absolute truth. 1. Attempts to understand 2. Believes the world is contextual 3. Observer-participant 4. Holistic inquiry 5. Reports out with narrative description 6. Believes realities are multiple social phenomena 7. Believes investigation is context laden 8. Believes theory and practice are interactive and specific 9. Subject / Subject relationship 10. Anthropological approach- ethnography
Critical Paradigm This world view attempts to reveal the tacit values that underlie the enterprise or hidden agenda. 1. Looking for underlying assumptions 2. Looking for internal contradictions and politics 3. Advocates social action 4. Believe society is controlled by power 5. Believes reality is contextual 6. Believes self-reflection is the beginning.
See Attachment A for the complete Paradigm Deconstruction Charts.
Stage One
Question Design: What do Mexican middle school students recognize as “art”.
January 2012
Subjects:
Mexican students: three females, eleven males- 12-14 year old. Eight travel by water from pueblos of less than fifty people. Teacher: Senor Gerardo Mejia Hernandez at Escuela Boca de Tamatlan.
Location:
Boca de Tamatlan
| Boca de Tomatlán is a Mexican fishing village of around 340 people. The village is situated on the mountainside, the Horcones river and the Boca Bay. The Horcones River reaches its maximum width during the rain season, flowing abundantly and forcefully. The beach serves as port to watertaxi’s heading towards Las Animas, Quimixto, Majahuitas, and Yelapa (beaches only accessible by sea). |
| This year, with the help of a philanthropist recruited by Gerardo Mejia Hernandez, students from the beach towns accessible only by water have the opportunity to attend school in the water taxi, using the newly built dock. |
| Boca de Tomatlán is a stop on the highway connected to the southern coastline. If you continue south on the highway, you would drive into Las Juntas y los Veranos, and further ahead, at El Tuito, both rural towns . A visit to El Tuito, approximately 28 kms distance from Boca de Tomatlan, is like traveling back in time. |
The Researcher:
Barbara Bridges employs reflection and investigation of social phenomena to create historiographic/ record keeping art works. She has experience and a passion for developing curriculum which encourages collaborative creating which builds community across cultures. She employs a style of art making she calls “Recordari” from the Latin “to remember, call to mind (re-restore and cor, genitive, cordis heart), understood by the ancients as the seat of judgment and memory”. Barbara is a conceptual artist, working in many different media to create art works to be used as a focus for curriculum delivery.
Barbara’s relationship with teachers, students and schools began in Maine where she started teaching art in 1976. She has worked with teachers, artists and students since that time in Maine, Mexico, the Caribbean, and in Minnesota.
Barbara founded the Sandy Point Art School from 1980-1990 and organized and led a workshop at her cottage and studio in 2008. Participants: Doug Boughton, Past-President, International Society for Education Through Art; Kerry Freedman, NAEA Higher Educator of the Year, Past-Editor, Studies in Art Education; Mary Ann Stankiewicz, NAEA President (2003-2005); Laurie E. Hicks, Founder/Editor The Journal of Gender Issues in Art and Education; Pat Stuhr, Department Chair, The Ohio State University; Madelynne Engle Conceptual Sculptor, US Embassy, Hilton Collection, Monsanto, E F Hutton, Bank of America, San Diego, California and me! More information: http://bridgescreate.wpengine.com/fellows-institute/
Dr. Barbara Rogers Bridges is also a professor at Bemidji State University –Minnesota
*Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Minnesota
*Designer and past-director of the unique distributed online learning DLiTE program, a K-8 teacher licensure program http://www.bemidjistate.edu/academics/dlite and secondary FasTrack Initiative.http://www.bemidjistate.edu/academics/dlite
* 1998 Higher Art Educator of Minnesota
* 2008 Higher Art Educator of Minnesota
* 2008 Art Teacher of Minnesota
Objective:
- The students will reveal their level of English language proficiency and their current level of awareness of selected art works by participating in a circle game using the preceding images.
- The students will reveal their level of understanding of visual metaphor by creating their own personal metaphor symbol.
Procedure Part 1:
Researcher worked with the principal and teachers of Escuela Boca de Tamatlan
to plan an action survey to identify the level of English language proficiency and
level of awareness regarding Western European, Mexican regional and national
and industrial design objects.
Image 1 Zero students had ever seen this painting or knew of Frida Kalo but
DID identify it as art.
Image 2 All students knew what this was, 2 of the males had one, zero
identified it as art.
Image 3 Zero students could identify this as being typical art of their region. but
DID identify it as art.
Image 4 Four of the males and one of the females could name this art work but
not the artist. They did not know where it was painted but DID identify it as art.
Image 5 One male could identify this as the famous Geicko. Four males and two
females identified it as art (because it had a frame- they agreed).
English Proficiency:
The English Teacher, using observation of this lesson with and previous gpa
estimates the class average for comprehension of the learner objectives of this
lesson was 75%. The class was conducted in English with Spanish translation
where it was needed.
Procedure Part 2
Snappy Launch:
The teacher will show her necklace of power objects collected to represent experiences in Latin American locales over the last 30 years.
The teacher will show a picture of her personal symbol and the symbol of Bob Masla, Creativity Workshop Leader:
Discussion follows on the relationship of B in terms of researcher names and bees pollinating flowers , as teachers pollinate their students with knowledge. Masla discusses the importance of the mariposa (butterfly) in Mexican culture. Students are interested in the transformational characteristics of the mariposa. Is metamorphosis part of THEIR life?
Materials:
Images 1-5
String
Markers
Paper
Students create their symbols.
Anticdotal Data.
The students found it difficult to identify a symbol which would be meaningful to them inan abstract way. Researcher needs to make home/village visits to get an idea regarding personal relevance.
The girls were completely engaged with the necklace and researcher sees this as a possible motivational strategy as a pre-lesson.
Students need an image based English drill program. Researcher needs to fins one.
Conclusions:
Working with Gerardo Mejia Hernandez, researcher will:
- Identify an image-web-based Spanish-to-English drill program and send to the Escuela.
- Design a personal symbol lesson focused on student life world.
- Design a lesson focused on the Huichol art of the region.
- Design a environmental lesson focused on a specific issue at the escuela.
- Design an installation lesson which includes the regional art, environmental issue important at the school and including personal symbols.
References
Author Visual Impact, Visual Teaching: Using Images to Strengthen Learning
Corwin Press; Second Edition (February 15, 2009)
Attachment A
EMPIRICAL / ANALYTICAL PARADIGM
Also called: Objective – Quantitative – Deductive – Normative – Positivist-Authoritarian This worldview believes that you can explain-predict-control. Scientists see the world from this perspective
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS:
1. Cause and effect is real and can explain the world 2. Research is context-free 3. Believes in detached role of observer 4. Uses statistical analysis 5. Generalizes from the specific
6. Reality exists and can be predicted
7. Investigation is neutral
8.Theory and Practice are separate
9. Subject / Object relationship
10. Aristotle, Locke, Hume
TYPES OF RESEARCH MODELS:
Developmental – experimental psychology – people respond mechanically
Epistemological – knowledge origin is from without – common goal – known text (universitas)
Experimental – natural science – true knowledge
THEORISTS:
Socrates Teacher leads the learner to the answer by using “artful questioning”
Mortimer Adler All members of the species have the same nature, perrenialist
Aristotle Teacher instructs learner
Albert Bandura People develop behaviors by observing others- behaviorist
Warren Bennis Knowledge is testable by scientific method
Alfred Binet Developer of the IQ test.
Benjamin Bloom Bloom’s Taxonomy – Six progressively complex levels of cognition
Auguste Comte Men should recognize the overriding authority of science
René Descartes Modern school of mathematics
William Glasser Control theory is about fulfilling the needs of the individual
Marian Edelman Children will model what they see
Erik Erikson Eight stages of psychosocial development
Fredrich Hegel Students must conform to institutional order and laws of
reason but believed in self-consciousness – laid
foundation for social philosophy
E. D Hirsch Core knowledge exists
Thomas Hobbes Cause and effect- geometry and physics answer questions
without human nature
David Hume All knowledge comes from experience
Ayn Rand Objectivism is a complete, systematic, integrated system of thought
Bertrand Russell Reality grounded in mathematics – Principia Mathematical
Lawrence Kohlberg Theory of moral development influenced by Jean Piaget and John
Dewey
John Locke Knowledge is publicly verifiable, measurable
Ivan Pavlov Conditioning
Jean Piaget Five stages of cognitive development
B. F. Skinner Behaviorist, Operant conditioning and schedules of reinforcement
Edward Thorndike Law of Effect, Law of Readiness, Law of Exercise
Lev Vygotsky Scaffolding- private speech
Edmund Husserl Principal founder of phenomenology
THEORETICAL BASE
Assimilationist – majority rules and absorbs less powerful cultures
Behaviorist – all behavior is a response to stimuli – predictable -B.F. Skinner (Pavlov’s dog)
Objectivism – complete, systematic, integrated system of thought
Rationalist – human reason is starting place for construction of knowledge – Descartes
Empiricist – knowledge foundation of human experience
Determinist – no random events – determined by past behaviors and events
Essentialist – hard work, mental discipline, core of knowledge – 3 R’s
Structuralist – believes there are societal universal structures
Perrennialist – underlying principles of existence are constant- we can pass on a body of
knowledge – Edelman
Positivist – logical – the what – quantitative study of human phenomena – Comte
Realist – concepts exist (not just names) knowledge and values are independent of human mind -Aristotle
METHODS / PROCEDURES / TECHNIQUES
1. Nomothetic (General laws) – agree on general truths
2. Survey Verbal or written questions administered to subjects
3. Experiment – A test measuring an effect.
4. Randomized Sampling – The selection of subjects using a random system
5. Pre/post Test – A test given before and after the treatment.
6. Statistical Analysis Correlational studies – one variable’s change is affected by change
in another variable
7. Correlational Studies – One variable’s change is effected by a change in another variable
8. Use of Control Group, i.e. a group that is not given the treatment.
INTERPRETIVE / SYMBOLIC PARADIGM Also called: Qualitative – Subjective – Inductive – Existentialist – Non-Authoritarian This worldview is idiomatic and believes in nonstatistical interpretations of events. It values individual or specific observations and seeks to understand rather than to generalize into absolute truth.
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS:
1. Attempts to understand 2. Believes the world is contextual
3. Observer-participant
4. Holistic inquiry 5. Reports out with narrative description
6. Believes realities are multiple social phenomena
7. Believes investigation is context laden
8. Believes theory and practice are interactive and specific
9. Subject / Subject relationship
10. Anthropological approach- ethnography
TYPES OF RESEARCH MODELS:
Hermeneutics – paths have fallen together – knowledge from within – study of text
Anthropology – study of culture and social characteristics – Mead
Phenomenology – classify experience at face value – how individuals make sense of world , pre-reflective
Phenomenological Human Science – study of essential meanings of life world –van Manen
Symbolic Interaction – focus on the world of the subjective and the meanings and symbols that represent them – no suggestions for remediation – the now
THEORISTS:
Max Van Manen Phenomenological Human Science, practice, reflection
Immanuel Kant German philosopher and founder of Critical Philosophy; made first decisive break with empiricism
Jerome Bruner Students construct new ideas by integrating new material
Noam Chomsky Students understand the world through the arduous process of controlled inquiry
John Dewey Grandfather of Pedagogy – Progressivism. Relies upon the use of scientific method to solve problems
W. E. B. DuBois Every argument rests on an unproven postulate
Elliot Eisner Qualitative research
Frederik Frobel Free self-activity, discovery play.
Howard Gardner Multiple intelligences Linguistic, Musical, Logical, Spatial,
Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal, and Interpersonal. Roger and
David Johnson Cooperative Learning
Maxine Greene Purpose of education is for teachers and students to create
meaning in their lives
Jean-Jacques Rousseau The common, natural man, Emile, original nature of man is
good but corrupted by society
Margaret Mead Anthropologist – individual experience of developmental
stages could be shaped by cultural demands and expectations
Daniel Golman Emotional Intelligence
William F. Pinar Cultural character of the curriculum
Jean Paul Sartre Existentialism – emphasizes the ultimacy of human freedom
Carl R. Rogers Client-centered therapy-humanist
Martin Heidegger Metaphysics – relativist – social critic – educated in
phenomenological tradition of Husserl
Abraham Maslow The father of Humanistic Psychology Hierarchy of Needs
Maria Montessori Education is not what the teacher gives; education is a
natural process spontaneously carried out by the human
individual
THEORETICAL BASE:
“Eastern Thought” -starts with the inner world – reaches to the outer world of thought
Voluntarist – humans exercise free will
Ethnographist – in-depth analysis of a specific cultural situation
Constructionist – believes in intact realities, students develop own frames of thought
Relativist – everything goes, meaningless
Reconceptualist – lived experience (lived experience)
Anti-Positivist – knowledge origin from within- people respond to given situation
Pragmatist -anticipated consequences-informed judgment-becoming (not being) application.
Progressivist – learning is rooted in questions developed by the learners -Process not Product – Dewey
Naturalist – don’t disrupt just record and understand axioms: 1. realities are multiple, 2. knower and known are interactive, 3. no generalizations, 4. inductive, no cause and effect, 5. inquiry is value bound, always biased
“Native American Thought”- connection to nature – cyclical oneness
Nominalist – abstract theme – only can name things, never real
Existentialist – reality in the lived experience – Sartre, Kierkegaard
METHODS / PROCEDURES / TECHNIQUES USED FOR RESEARCH
1. Role play 5. Scenario
2. Interview 6. Script taping
3. Participant observation 7. Case study
4. Probing 8. Descriptive Research
CRITICAL PARADIGM This world view attempts to reveal the tacit values that underlie the enterprise or hidden agenda. Click here for a lecture on Semantics… Critical Theory discussion
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS:
1. Looking for underlying assumptions
2. Looking for internal contradictions and politics 3. Advocates social action 4. Believe society is controlled by power
5. Believes reality is contextual
6. Believes self-reflection is the beginning
TYPES OF RESEARCH MODELS:
Post Structural Analysis – looking for underlying assumptions
Literary Theory
Archaeology – looking for historical implications
Cultural Criticism – critical sociology or anthropology
Discursive – explore organization or ordinary talk
Hermeneutics – study of known text
THEORISTS:
Karl Marx Basic reality is material- knower and known are in a continued process of mutual adaptation
Henry Girouix Critical Theorist –all things are power and politics
Friedrich Nietzsche Existentialist – facts do not exist, only interpretations
Soren Kierkegaard Existentialism – believed in religion, indirect communication
Jean Paul Sartre Existentialism- a philosophical approach that
emphasizes the ultimacy of human freedom.
Paulo Freire Brazilian educator – phenomenologist , students must construct knowledge from knowledge they already possess
Conscientization’ – consciousness-raising
Jurgen Habermas Most eclectic modern Marxist – speech act theory, hermeneutics
Michael Apple Educational critical theorist –criticizes education as factory
model
Lev Vygotsky Scaffolding- private speech.
THEORETICAL BASE
Feminist Critique – feminist/gender issues
Neo-Pragmatist – concerned with language
Neo-Marxist – maintain most issues in our lives are economic/historical
Critical Theorist – looks at underlying assumptions – contradictions – improve society, synthesis of philosophy and a scientific understanding of society – Habermas
Reductionist – way to understand is to relate to small independent parts
Deconstructionist – analyzes internal contradictions (Norris, Benjamin) language theory
Social Reconstructist – focus is to improve society – Girouix
Post Structuralist – looks at underlying assumptions – no universals – Foucault
Postmodernist – never generalize – each case has its own peculiarities – coming to know is centered on self – role of social critic is to play language game – exchange symbols
Post Positivist – if knowledge exists, use science to describe and find out WHY data appears as it does
Humanistic- humans are born free and good but are enslaved by institutions, individuals are not objects to be measured – Rousseau
METHODS / PROCEDURES / TECHNIQUES
1. Rhetorical Close Reading – read for multiple levels of reading
2. Decentering – to move from the center of focus of inquiry – look at relationship
not subject/object
3. Coding/Decoding Text or Verbal – look for code – WHY they use the word
4. Case Study – a snapshot – focuses on an individual or group
5. Text Analysis – underlying meanings
6. Reflection