Great conversation...thanks for posting. I spent this weekend at the University of Arkansas and spent several meals talking with a professor there as well as a morning I spent with 50 local teachers and intern students. The constriction of curriculum and the pressure of testing have truly changed the agency of teachers. I see it everywhere I go. Teachers want more reading--the textbooks they are given rely on excerpts, not novels. Reading--real, sustained engagement--is about so much more than skills, but those in power continue to minimize the power of what English teachers can do. It is a dark time for so many in our profession, but light will come. I hope our incredibly powerful English teacher colleagues at every level hang in there.
This is such an important conversation! I don't like sounding defeatist or contributing to a declining narrative, but this is definitely a K-16 problem. The decline of the English major begins with our youngest learners. How children see and do literacy is how adolescents and teens see and do English in high school, which is why fewer decide to pursue a literacy life post-high school. When testing regimes dominate our pedagogy, everything is influenced, from what is valued and taught, to the perceptions being formed and reinforced as children age into young adults.
Great conversation...thanks for posting. I spent this weekend at the University of Arkansas and spent several meals talking with a professor there as well as a morning I spent with 50 local teachers and intern students. The constriction of curriculum and the pressure of testing have truly changed the agency of teachers. I see it everywhere I go. Teachers want more reading--the textbooks they are given rely on excerpts, not novels. Reading--real, sustained engagement--is about so much more than skills, but those in power continue to minimize the power of what English teachers can do. It is a dark time for so many in our profession, but light will come. I hope our incredibly powerful English teacher colleagues at every level hang in there.
This looks fascinating! Excited to listen.
This is such an important conversation! I don't like sounding defeatist or contributing to a declining narrative, but this is definitely a K-16 problem. The decline of the English major begins with our youngest learners. How children see and do literacy is how adolescents and teens see and do English in high school, which is why fewer decide to pursue a literacy life post-high school. When testing regimes dominate our pedagogy, everything is influenced, from what is valued and taught, to the perceptions being formed and reinforced as children age into young adults.