Teaching The Hudson Valley

Fighting Back

Posted by Nancy Schniedewind
on October 09, 2012

Nancy Schniedewind is a professor of education at SUNY New Paltz and a former member of the New Paltz Board of Education.

Educational Courage: Resisting the Ambush of Public Education brings together the voices of educators, parents, writers, and activists who are resisting the standardization and privatization of public education.

Contributors to this recently-published book include two educators and a student from my home base, Ulster County. My co-editor was Mara Sapon-Shevin, Professor of Inclusive Education at Syracuse University.

The pieces in this collection tell stories seldom covered in mainstream media. They describe audacious acts of resistance to corporate-driven education policies that Jonathan Kozol asserts �are killing the spirits of our children:� students refusing to take tests, teachers turning down merit pay or contesting the practices of corporate charters, writers challenging the Common Core, and parents organizing to stop excessive testing.

In one essay Felipa Gaudet (shown here) describes how she was able to nurture a traumatized kindergartener because her principal, Aviva Kafka, fostered a �loving... child-centered school," not a "sterile...test-frenzied institution.�

Felipa is a former Hyde Park teacher now at George Washington Montessori in Kingston. Aviva Kafka, is now an assistant superintendent in Hyde Park.

Two of the poems in the book (see below) portray ways in which top-down policies undermine education in a democracy. While these poems describe losses to young people that have motivated educators and their allies to act to challenge bad policies, the vast majority of pieces in Educational Courage depict the creativity of people working together to reclaim our schools for the public good.

The book also provides ideas, strategies, and hope to those readers who want to act locally to regain democratic control of public education.

The book is available from Beacon Press or at Inquiring Minds Bookstores in New Paltz and Saugerties.

Kevin Cothern is a retired New Paltz
teacher. Dan Porter, a recent college
graduate, wrote his poem as a
sophomore at New Paltz High School.

Poetry Test

by Kevin Cothern

Pencils sharpened,
         Papers properly deployed,
Dutifully,
         Corporately,
You demonstrate your standard outcome performances.
         They bubble out onto the page.
         Filling in blank, white spaces on neat, blackened lines
               Labeling
                  petal, sepal, pistil, stamen,
                                                             Stigma.

While outside the classroom,
   real lilacs bloom,
      blueberries ripen,
           seeds are being born.

But your sentence will not be complete
      until School is finished cheating you
                          this year,
                                on the last day of spring.

What is the correct title for this poem?

A Cheating Kids
B Finals Week
C Standardized Tests
D Complete Sentence
E All of the above

Can You Standardize a Dream?

By Dan Porter
For Mohammad W., the pride of Lahore

One and a half years.

That's what they give you
to show you can be a productive American,
to show that you have assimilated, at least linguistically,
to show you have spent your time well.

18 months to break down age old language barriers,
from Hindi, Cantonese, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish,
from centuries of proud tradition and history,
to writing three essays in two days.

To decide your fate.

Of course there's no box to check for "I work 35 hours a week"
or "in my country English was an elective"
or "if I don't pass this I'll probably have to abandon my dream."

Only age,
school,
town,
and name,
and of course they don't give you enough space.

18 months to speak the same level of English as American teenagers.
Teenagers with tutors, review books, healthy parents and "part-time" jobs.

Meanwhile, your only compatriot is that
overworked ESL teacher
who is quickly losing hope.

So goes the American Dream�

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