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Tuesday, May 31, 2005
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DISPOSITIONLOVE “Brooklyn College's School of Education has begun to base evaluations of aspiring teachers in part on their commitment to social justice, raising fears that the college is screening students for their political views. The School of Education at the CUNY campus initiated last fall a new method of judging teacher candidates based on their "dispositions," a vogue in teacher training across the country that focuses on evaluating teachers' values, apart from their classroom performance. Critics of the assessment policy warned that aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said, teacher candidates could be ousted from the School of Education if they are found to have the wrong dispositions. "All of these buzz words don't seem to mean anything until you look and see how they're being implemented," a prominent history professor at Brooklyn College, Robert David Johnson, said. "Dispositions is an empty vessel that could be filled with any agenda you want," he said. Critics such as Mr. Johnson say the dangers of the assessment policy became immediately apparent in the fall semester when several students filed complaints against an instructor who they said discriminated against them because of their political beliefs and "denounced white people as the oppressors." … Driving the new policies at the college and similar ones at other education schools is a mandate set forth by the largest accrediting agency of teacher education programs in America, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. That 51-year-old agency, composed of 33 professional associations, says it accredits 600 colleges of education - about half the country's total. Thirty-nine states have adopted or adapted the council's standards as their own, according to the agency. In 2000 the council introduced new standards for accrediting education schools. Those standards incorporated the concept of dispositions, which the agency maintains ought to be measured, to sort out teachers who are likeliest to be successful. In a glossary, the council says dispositions "are guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values such as caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice." To drive home the notion that education schools ought to evaluate teacher candidates on such parameters as attitude toward social justice, the council issued a revision of its accrediting policies in 2002 in a Board of Examiners Update. It encouraged schools to tailor their assessments of dispositions to the schools' guiding principles, which are known in the field as "conceptual frameworks." The council's policies say that if an education school "has described its vision for teacher preparation as 'Teachers as agents of change' and has indicated that a commitment to social justice is one disposition it expects of teachers who can become agents of change, then it is expected that unit assessments include some measure of a candidate's commitment to social justice." … [One Brooklyn College course], which instructs students on how to develop lesson plans that teach literacy, is built around themes of "social justice," according to the syllabus, which was obtained by The New York Sun. One such theme is the idea that standard English is the language of oppressors while Ebonics, a term educators use to denote a dialect used by African-Americans, is the language of the oppressed. A preface to the listed course requirements includes a quotation from a South African scholar, Njabulo Ndebele: "The need to maintain control over English by its native speakers has given birth to a policy of manipulative open-mindedness in which it is held that English belongs to all who use it provided that it is used correctly. This is the art of giving away the bride while insisting that she still belongs to you." Among the complaints cited by students in letters they delivered in December to the dean of the School of Education, Deborah Shanley, is Ms. Parmar's alleged disapporval of students who defended the ability to speak grammatically correct English. Speaking of Ms. Parmar, one student, Evan Goldwyn, wrote: "She repeatedly referred to English as a language of oppressors and in particular denounced white people as the oppressors. When offended students raised their hands to challenge Professor Parmar's assertion, they were ignored. Those students that disagreed with her were altogether denied the opportunity to speak." Students also complained that Ms. Parmar dedicated a class period to the screening of an anti-Bush documentary by Michael Moore, "Fahrenheit 9/11," a week before last November's presidential election, and required students to attend the class even if they had already seen the film. Students said Ms. Parmar described "Fahrenheit 9/11" as an important film to see before they voted in the election. "Most troubling of all," Mr. Goldwyn wrote, "she has insinuated that people who disagree with her views on issues such as Ebonics or Fahrenheit 911 should not become teachers." … Four students, Ms. Harned said, dropped out of Ms. Parmar's course during the semester. One of the students was a former mechanic from Bay Ridge, Scott Madden, who said he wanted to become a teacher because "I like explaining things." Mr. Madden, 35, said that after he disputed a grade he received from her, Ms. Parmar encouraged him to withdraw from the course. He said he changed his plans to take the course in the summer after finding out that Ms. Parmar was again teaching both sections of the required course. "Basically, she's a socialist, she's racist against white people," Mr. Madden said. "If you want to pass that class you better keep your mouth shut." In an interview with the Sun, Ms. Harned said she dropped out of the School of Education and switched her major to political science because of her experience in Ms. Parmar's course. "I'm blacklisted," she said. "How am I supposed to move forward in a department I'm not comfortable in?" That is the point of the new format, critics of the dispositions standard said. "In its most pernicious form, then, dispositions theory is a tool for education schools to ensure that the next generation of public school students is educated solely by those teachers who have accepted the kind of extremist beliefs articulated by Professor Parmar," Mr. Johnson wrote.” *************************************** UD managed to get a face-to-face interview with one of the disposition mandate’s most enthusiastic proponents, a brilliant, high-ranking administrator at a well-known school of education who feels he cannot reveal his name “until each and every dispositional misfit has been silenced.” Here is a transcript of the interview, beginning with his response to UD’s skepticism about whether schools of education in this country can truly be purged of all students with non-standard dispositions. Ms UD, I would not rule out the chance to preserve in our schools of education a nucleus of true social justice specimens. It would be quite easy... heh heh... . UD: How long do you think this would take? Well let's see now ah … hmm.. I would think that uh... possibly uh... one hundred years. UD: You mean, you’re actually willing to wait a hundred years? It would not be difficult mein Fuhrer! Heh... I'm sorry. Ms UD…. UD: Well I... I would hate to have to decide.. who gets in and who…gets purged. Well, that would not be necessary Ms UD. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, and intelligence, as well as disposition. Of course it would be absolutely vital that our top school of education leaders be included among this cohort to foster and impart the required principles of caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice….[Slams down left fist. Right arm rises in stiff Nazi salute.] Arrrrr! [Restrains right arm with left.] Naturally, such people would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. But ah with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way toward total dispositional uniformity within say, twenty years. UD: But wouldn’t people miss the freedom and the variety of viewpoints about life that we have long cherished as Americans? No Ms UD ... [Right arm rolls his wheelchair backwards.] Excuse me. [Struggles with wayward right arm, ultimately subduing it with a beating from his left.] There would be no shocking memories of intellectual freedom and self-respect, and the prevailing emotion will be a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead! Ahhhh! [Right arm reflexes into Nazi salute. He pulls it back into his lap and beats it again. Gloved hand attempts to strangle him.] UD: Doctor, you mentioned the ration of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned? Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature. |