Barone Lecture
Barone writes in his book,
Touching Eternity, the enduring outcomes of teaching,
"Early in his career Don had hoped to achieve his aims (his aims were appreciation of art and nuture talents, my parapharse here) with every one of these beginning students. But he discovered that a school's organizational features can be educationally debilitaing." (p.112)
Over the years, I have come to realize that it is because of the organizational features that are in place that some teachers become bitter or disinterested. The system puts 30+ students in a beginning classroom. Whether it is beginning art, math, or Spanish - a classroom over crowded will lead to lack of personal attention for each and every student. Another example of poor orgainzation features is the new (once old) schedule of 50 minute classes. If the classes were smaller and 50 minutes, a teacher would be able to utilize this schedule. In a subject such as art having set up, clean up and group instruction leaves little time for individual instruction and critique.
This fits into the lecture in that Barone brought the group back to educational theorists and how they conceive the 'ideal' student and how we can build and challenge these models for our 'ideal' student.
Although more questions were raised than answered - the questions challenged me to reflect on my expectations for my students.