Reading Response 6-The Role of Schools

Kalantzis and Cope’s “Changing the Role of Schools” offered up some interesting ideas pertaining to the educational system. I feel like the contextualization was comprehensive regarding education’s past, present, and future relationship to work, civics, and personal life, and it was interesting to see how the authors demonstrated the interconnectness of education and other elements within society.

While I see and understand the first two sections, work and civics, for me, personally, I think that the most interesting section was the one on personal life. I think that this is because it is within this realm that I am able to actually make direct connections to my individual practice. It is here that I see the most potential for realistic change as an individual teacher because it doesn’t take the alteration of an entire society to begin teaching in a way that respects “multilayered identities.”

In the article, the authors point out that, since the end of the Cold War, “Instead of mass consumption, we are experiencing increasing subcultural fragmentation around niche markets…When not through a language of its own, each subculture speaks in its own specialized discourse.” And while these subcultures are becoming more and more defined and exclusive, they are also interacting more and more closely with others, creating a very interesting conglomeration of subcultures in small spaces. Trying not to sound too cliché, I think that we can see this “separated togetherness” very clearly within our public schools. Whether looking at the division of race, socio-economic class, or even just “cliques” within a school, these personal identities greatly affect the learning environment within my classroom.

As a teacher, I can see the value of using education in this “multilayered identity” fashion. Any practitioner will tell you that an open acknowledgement, respect, and access of student individuality can have a significant positive impact on learning. I think, though, that the problem lies in the fact that until there’s a nuclear holocaust and we start it all from scratch, the evolution of the educational system to include these principles is going to very slow-going. Does that make it any less worthwhile? Of course not, and I think that if more teachers would engage with these ideas then the change would be more effective more quickly. As for me…I’m gonna at least try.