Note: Due to technical
problems beyond my control, this posting is a day late.
A former colleague and current friend, Dr. Alejandro Gallard,
writes of the contextual realities that affect the effectiveness of classroom
efforts. I have shared many times in
this blog the complex nature of the typical classroom and this is the case in
even the most “simplified” situations: a
mono-cultural setting. But when you add
to the mix students who vary in ethnicity and cultural backgrounds, linguistic
diversity, even varying ages, possible levels of poverty, long term
unemployment and so forth, things can and do get scrambled and difficult for a
teacher who is trying to implement a curriculum that is set by district
officials sufficiently removed from that classroom. And today, in many areas of the country, curricular
writing has become a political football with varying agendas being played
out. Don’t get me wrong; I do recognize
that setting curricula is a political exercise – it’s unavoidable and this is
especially the case in times like ours when there is such partisan rancor all
about.
Gallard introduces a concept that I believe is helpful. He mentions contextual mitigating
factors. This is a term that encapsulates
the complexities of which I refer to above.
His area of interest is science education and even in a subject area
more prone to objectified content, these factors do not stay outside the
classroom door. They impede there just
as much as in the more politically oriented material one deals with in
civics. One just has to mention such
issues as evolution to be reminded of how political biology can be. Then there is sex education and other family
issues based on physically related concerns – e. g., vaccination – and one can
see that controversy is not so far removed from science education.
Gallard’s main concerns revolve around contextual mitigating
factors that influence the success rate of various ethnic populations in the
field of science. Specifically, he has
been studying the factors that are at play with the relatively unsuccessful
rates among Latinas. But whatever or
wherever the results are short of what is desired, I believe Gallard’s
sentiments should be kept in mind:
Nothing ever happens in a classroom
that doesn’t have mitigating factors that teachers need to deal with …
[s]omething from the outside is always going to influence what the teacher
wants to do inside the classroom. It can
be poverty; it can be contrasting belief systems or all sorts of things. I am a strong believer that education needs
to be looked at through multiple contextual lenses in which all teaching and
learning takes place. These influencing
factors or contextual mitigating factors must be made explicit and dealt with
before one can expect meaningful education reform to take place.[1]
For those of you who have been readers of this blog from its
early days, this type of rationale might sound familiar. Gallard can be judged to be a critical
educator of the reconceptualism school of thought. As I wrote back in those days, critical
educators have interesting and useful things to tell us and we should give them
our collective ear.
[1]
Bennett, S. (2015). Closing gaps:
Meet Georgia Southern’s Goizueta distinguished chair of education. Georgia
Southern Magazine, Spring, 17(2), p. 24.
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