Critical Theory and the Common Core Standards Initiative

            In a recent NPR article, Stephen Colbert is quoted referring to the Common Core Standards Initiative as, “preparing students for what they’ll face as adults – pointless stress and confusion.” But what exactly is it? For those who are unaware, the Common Core Initiative is “the largest-ever attempt in the United States to set unified expectations for what students in kindergarten through 12^th grade should know and be able to do in each grade in preparation for college or the workforce” (NPR). As of now, the Common Core only covers standards for English Language Arts (reading and writing) and Math. Presently, 44 states (including California) have formally adopted the standards, and intend to implement testing that have been made to reflect the standards.

            Why does the government think we need it? Several theories have arisen in order to explain the need for this standardization. One theory, for example, explains that having a single standard should make it easier for students to catch up when they switch schools or move to a new state, as in the case with military families. Another theory, in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act, argues that while once states individually chose its own tests and definition of proficiency, having a Common Core standard nationwide makes it easier to compare statistics between states (NPR).

Why is it important to consider race as an analytical tool for this educational standardization?

            In this post, I will attempt to draw attention to an undeniable relationship between race and the standardization of curricula through a critical race analysis of the English Book Lists of the Common Core Standards Initiative, exploring possible sites of racial exclusivity, but also raising awareness of how this reality can be challenged. Before doing so, it is important to highlight the way in which notions of race will be operationalized. Race, as defined by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, is “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (Omi and Winant 55). Race in this sense is formed both by social structure but also by cultural representation. While this is true, it is also important to consider the construction of notions of race as identities imposed onto oppressed people by social or economic circumstances. Derrick Bell notes how, “black people have been used to enrich this society and made to serve as its proverbial scapegoat” (Bell 27). The economic and social inequalities imposed onto bodies of color unquestionably still are strongly present today. The Common Core Standards are a prime example of this institutional racial inequality; educational standardization leads to the continual segregation of students of color under a seemingly natural and justifiable label. As Erica Meiners asserts, “public education has, and continues, to funnel targeted non-white and poor youth towards non-living wage work, participation in the street or the permanent war economy and prison” (Meiners 552).

The Absence of Latino Presence in Common Core Reading Lists

            As Elaine Rubinstein-Avila points out, “the key to engaging with students is by teaching to their strengths in addition to their needs (40). Utilizing cultural relevancy allows for a greater, more meaningful educational experience. A wide array of titles spans the gamut of the Common Core Book List, including titles like The Giver to Charlotte’s Web to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One thing, however, caught my attention: there were very few titles that featured a Latino/a protagonist. This realization was striking considering that “Hispanic students now make up nearly a quarter of the nation’s public school enrollment […] yet nonwhite Latino children seldom see themselves in books written for young readers” (Rich). The fact that books by authors such as Gary Soto or Julia Alvarez were not making the recommended list spoke volumes about the exclusion implicated by the Common Core Book List. “Hispanic children have historically underperformed non-Hispanic whites in American schools,” claims Motoko Rich. Without racial and cultural inclusion in recommended material, should it come as a surprise if the examinations of new Common Core end up perpetuating the same results?

School-to-Prison Pipeline

            What then happens to students who perform poorly in schools that rely heavily on test-based accountability? According to the ACLU, schools may encourage dropouts in order to boost the overall test scores and gain incentives. For many underfunded schools that may rely on such government aid, the desire to push out poor-performing students may result in implementation of zero-tolerance policies that may result in suspension or even expulsion for circumstances as simple as bringing nail clippers to school; the rates of which have been most dramatic for students of color (ACLU). In addition, schools have begun using surveillance and incarceration tools such as metal detectors, surveillance cameras, school uniforms, or on-site school police officers with no experience working with youth (Meiners 549). The ACLU asserts that students of color are far more likely than their white peers to be suspended, expelled, or arrested for the same kind of conduct in school, and to inevitably end up in juvenile detention facilities.

What Can Be Done About This Issue?

            Considering that the Common Core has been adopted by the majority of the states, the question to ask now is what, if anything, can the library do to help remedy the issue with the lack of representation of people of color in the Common Core Book List? A possible solution would be for libraries to make more visible the material that has been written by people of color and focuses on characters that children of color can identify with. Although the library’s founding principles, according to Todd Honma, speak to “a common hegemonic U.S. rhetoric of white ethnic assimilation and meritocratic advancement,” perhaps promoting further the presence of literature written by people of color would advocate instead for diversification. Though the path to a just society is far from reached, advocating for greater inclusivity in realms of literature by the library helps both the realm of academia, and itself in its own transformation.

Works Cited

Bell, Derrick A., Richard Delgado, and Jean Stefancic. The Derrick Bell Reader. New York: New York UP, 2005. PDF.

"Book Lists." Common Core. Scholastic, n.d. Web. 29 May 2014. <http://commoncore.scholastic.com/teachers/books/literature>.

"The Common Core FAQ." NPR. NPR, 27 May 2014. Web. 29 May 2014. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/05/27/307755798/the-common-core-faq#q23>.

Honma, Todd. "Trippin' Over the Color Line: The Invisibility of Race in Library and Information Studies." InterActions (2005): n. pag. Web. 29 May 2014. <http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nj0w1mp>.

Meiners, Erica R. "Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline/Building Abolition Futures." The Urban Review 43.4 (2011): 547-65. Web. 15 May 2014.

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge, 1994. PDF.

Rich, Motoko. "For Young Latino Readers, an Image Is Missing." The New York Times. The New York Times, 04 Dec. 2012. Web. 29 May 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/education/young-latino-students-dont-see-themselves-in-books.html?pagewanted=all>.

"What Is The School-to-Prison Pipeline?" American Civil Liberties Union. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May 2014. <https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/what-school-prison-pipeline>.

Alternative Libraries as Situated Knowledges

Within recent years, growing attention has been paid to “alternative libraries” as sites that collect materials not often acquired (comprehensively) in academic, public, or special libraries. These spaces are typically independent or operate as a part of a larger institution with a specific mission in mind. Alternative libraries range from functioning out of a garage or warehouse space with friends, in the park, or as part of an independent organization (for instance a gallery, political group, or personal archive). Whatever the case may be, it seems that the common thread is to provide access to materials that are under represented in the larger schema of conventional libraries. Multiple blogs have been created in an attempt to document the contemporary phenomenon, as many of these alternative libraries are not readily visible to the greater community though they serve as great resources for specific areas of knowledge. In this post, I would like to explore how conventional notions of the library as housing collections of objective accounts and authoritative knowledge are challenged by the existence of alternative libraries and contextual these spaces within Donna Haraway’s theory of situated knowledges.

Perhaps a definition of alternative libraries is called for here. In my research, I have found that alternative libraries often develop in conversation with, or in resistance to, conventional library structures. Rather than being in direct opposition with one another, alternative libraries represent the space and functions of conventional libraries while simultaneously challenging their approaches. Alternative libraries and librarians instead provide information in different contexts, facilitating multiple ways of knowing for different communities and areas of interest. In response to traditional library settings, alternative spaces developed as a means to provide access to materials that have cultural significance but are not heavily collected in academic or public libraries. People were in search for content that reflected their information interests and a shared space with a community of individuals with similar ideas. Essentially, the development of alternative libraries draw attention to the limits of conventional libraries and focus on collecting content that provide counter-narratives and represent varied and specific interests.

I feel that Haraway’s situated knowledges theory is useful here as she aims to deconstruct binaries and monolithic truth claims that have governed how knowledge is produced and organized. Haraway employs a metaphor of vision to unpack the ways in which a myth has been perpetuated about knower and known. She claims, “The eyes have been used to signify a perverse capacity...to distance the knowing subject from everybody and everything in the interests of unfettered power”. In this sense, academic and public libraries can be identified as the eyes of the knower. Alternative libraries are located in dialogue with such conventional libraries whose collections have traditionally been constructed as authoritative and objective ways of knowing. Haraway goes on to interrogate objectivity and argues, “...objectivity turns out to be about particular and specific embodiment and definitely not about the false vision promising transcendence of all limits and responsibility. The moral is simple: only partial perspective promises objective vision.” I find that the partiality and specific perspectives presented in alternative library collections align with Haraway’s form of objectivity.

            Collections such as the LGBT history materials at the ONE Archives at USC; the homoerotic art and literature at Tom of Finland Foundation library, archives, and gallery; and the personal histories collected at People’s Library are contemporary examples of libraries and archives whose collections reflect the situated, embodied knowledges of their users. The collections are reflective of the lived experiences of individuals whose “view from a body” is not comprehensively represented in conventional public and academic library collections.  

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Sources:

Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14:3 (Fall 1998): 581.

Alana Kumbier, “Inventing History: The Watermelon Woman and Archive Activism,” in Make Your Own History: Documenting Feminist and Queer Activism ed. Lyz Bly and Kelly Wooten (Los Angeles: Litwin Books, LLC, 2012): 98.

The Glass Room: Cyberfeminism and the “Cyborg Librarian” in Teaching and Learning

Margaret Powers’ student describes snow to a penpal student using Google Glass’ video recording capabilities. (CNN)

“Okay, Glass--

-Take a picture

-Screen share with the class

-Hangout with Singapore

-Open AR

-Play a game

…”

The frontier of educational technology is a glass room, on view to the world with little privacy, utopian in its possibilities. It is easy to idealize this space: an iPad for every student will bring the world’s information to their tiny fingertips, applications with the ability to research, cite, share and present information are readily available to the educational and school library markets. The title of this post is a play on the term “glassroom”, meaning a Google Glass-enabled classroom. It may be easier to stomach a wireless-enabled school or a classroom full of laptops used for convenient research over a pair of Google Glass on every students’ head. But our schools are moving toward personal microtechnology for students at a rate that surpasses our ability to research long-term benefits or drawbacks on the intellectual, social and emotional ramifications of that decision.

As initiatives in K-12 education to provide students with personal digital devices expand, so do the concerns of cost, effectiveness and stability over time. The trajectory of educational technology appears to be barreling toward smaller, more powerful devices in the hands of every child- a one-to-one initiative. But is this technofuturist idealism, destined for an information monopoly on every student? Or is it an opportunity to envision a classroom that is hyper-enabled, but due to the instructional design and pedagogical strategies of its teachers and librarians?

Put another way, will we throw the stones, or will we ensure the safety of those inside?

Cyborgs in/of the Glass Room

I explore these questions through Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto”, applied to the White House ConnectED initiative to provide broadband access to schools across the country, and to pilot 1:1 iPad and Google Glass initiatives making their way into classrooms. If we apply Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” to the new reality of globalized, hyperconnected education in a similar manner as she first applied it to biology and race, we can begin to build a sort of cyborg librarian manifesto, a protective measure against the blind idealism of technophilia charging through schools and libraries across the country. Haraway writes of the technological disintegration of the organic object. “We see translations of racism and colonialism into languages of development and underdevelopment, rates and constraints of modernization.” Modern American K-12 education, built like a capsule to withstand the movement through rapid technological advances, a classist system will prevail, disintegrating the mission of educating the whole child. The White House ConnectED mission, for example, reads:

Preparing America’s students with the skills they need to get good jobs and compete with countries around the world relies increasingly on interactive, personalized learning experiences driven by new technology. Yet fewer than 30% of America’s schools have the broadband they need to teach using today’s technology. Under ConnectED, however, 99% of American students will have access to next-generation broadband by 2017. That connectivity will help transform the classroom experience for all students, regardless of income.

I read the ConnectED mission, through Haraway, as a cyberpolitical effort to turn the general online environment into a classroom. Aside from “next-generation broadband” the initiative also promises teacher training in private sector educational tools, such as products from Apple, AT&T, Adobe, Microsoft, Prezi, and others. For public education to survive, I think it needs the endowment of the private sector, but with the “fresh source of analysis and political activism” that Haraway presents in the living iteration of cyberfeminism. Initiatives that rely on this government-led classroom connectivity range from benign to downright scary, depending on who you ask. Childrens’ hyper-visibility, lack of understanding of digital privacy, and academic integrity are all equal perils of personal mobile-enabled devices. Educational technologists feel confident that students will be able to do more with devices in their hands, starting with the executive political assessment that students are to be connected to broadband internet at all times, and trickling into individual class projects. Haraway’s “informatics of domination” can be read anew to describe the digital objectification of children’s bodies, thoughts and emotions. Private sector monopolies are well-established, especially between Apple and Google alone. I believe there are positive implications to integrating digital technology into curriculum, but it absolutely requires the boundary spanning capabilities of a professional familiar with the political and technological dynamics of information seeking behavior.

Positive Implications

What can devices do for K-12 students in the classroom? Teachers who use iPads or Google Glass in their curriculum (or a combination of the two) can accomplish the following tasks:

• Virtual field trips: Through image-based GIS applications, students can visit historical sites, other countries, and can chat in real time with experts and friends. Satellite maps or street-view maps can be layered with information provided by their teacher.
• Tagging everywhere: Citation and information gathering exercises can help students create bibliographies, but can also introduce them to the concept of folksonomies.
• Sharing: Wireless connectivity and cloud-based applications provide nearly-instant sharing of students’ work, with classmates, their teachers, or the global community.
• Problem solving and collaboration: Apps work within curriculum to present challenges in new ways, and the shareable interface allows students to work together easily.
• Teacher training: With Google Glass, in particular, teachers can see their students’ work from the students’ perspective. Other teachers can also view classrooms from a colleague’s perspective.
• Assistive technologies: For students with disabilities, voice control or assistive features of a device can make activities more accessible.

Students coding a path for their robot on Kodable, an iPad app. Taken by their teacher, Margaret Powers, using Glass. (CNN)

The Cyborg Librarian as Boundary Object

Technology is still more in the hands of teachers than librarians, but using Gina Schlesselman-Tarango’s model of the “cyborg librarian”, who is defined as “a human-machine capable of interacting with patrons and technology alike.” Librarians span the boundary of the political, technological and personal worlds by becoming equally fluent in digital and human interactions. But the author speaks to cyberfeminist information literacy in the context of the academic library, not in the K-12 realm at all.

Using Schlesselman-Tarango’s idea of this “borderlands” inhabitant is still helpful. The cyborg librarian is there to defend the frontier, to provide translation services. The cyborg librarian figure, she argues, is not automatically cyberfeminist. “The cyborg asks that students work together to find new digital information resources of interest and to share these findings with the class. Specifically, the cyborg challenges students to find information that reflects the great variety of voices that can speak to a particular topic.” The direction of the cyborg librarian has the potential to be a radical feminist act, raising critical consciousness in students. Micro-sized mobile technology brings another curious feminist thread to librarianship and education- it questions the empty-vessel role of the student, and serves as the motor for self-directed learning.  It’s a question of whether analog structures of knowledge seeking and instruction are in fact more organic than applied learning through microtechnology, or the omnipresence of online access. It becomes easy, in hindsight, to idealize didactic practice through print material. But materiality and textuality do not comprise the entire educational system. Is the “old way” of teaching and learning any better? Which mode of learning has the ability to destabilize colonial, patriarchal epistemologies. 

“Okay, Glass?”