Letter to Minneapolis Public Schools

Dear Minneapolis School District,

In our course work as pre-service teachers we have been analyzing issues of the achievement gap, integration, and educational policies. Through this we’ve come across Minneapolis North High School’s educational struggles, and felt compelled to share a possible alternative plan of action. With the documented turmoil in American schools and the potential redistricting after North Community High School’s closing provides MPS a unique opportunity to drastically impact how diverse communities educate their children. With the goal of closing the achievement gap in mind we believe that creating a student and faculty partnership through area high schools would prove beneficial for not only students and faculty, but the community as well.

This partnership would involve integrating two separate high schools including North High School. The partner high school could be chosen based on high achievement and proximity to North High. We recommend exchanging 50 percent of the students and faculty through lottery selection. The implementation of this plan could provide learning opportunities beyond those currently available. Students and faculty would have the opportunity to learn from and with one another, creating a lasting and solid partnership.

Through our research we have learned that common educational practices often widen the achievement gap, whether knowingly or not. Former Boston school principal, Kim Marshall, wrote “A How-to Plan for Widening the Gap” in which he lists 15 contributing decisions. Some of these informative ideas are listed below alongside our correlated suggestions.

• Issue: Isolated and Shallow Planning
  Solution: Through this integration collaborative planning and input would allow for differentiated experiences for both students and teachers.
• Issue: Unclear Expectations/Lack of Curriculum and Standards
  Solution: The integration will provide opportunity for collaborative goal setting, expectations, curriculum, and standards.
• Issue: Track-Pairing of Students and Teachers
  Solution: The random selection of students and teachers will allow for diversified pairings, less tracking, and varied learning opportunities.

Looking at this plan of action from different perspectives we understand the probable upset. Throughout history, notable events have taken place when people took risks - trying new things when they saw hope and potential in places and times when giving up looked easiest. Therefore, we strongly encourage MPS to consider this plan.

Please feel free to contact us. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Future Educators at Luther College: Kristina Tucker, Emmalee Johnson, Brittinae Dralle, Ryan Monroe, and Ethan Schultz

Symphony No. 5

Now that you have a basic understanding of the composer's background, let's take a closer look at the piece. Shostakovich's fifth symphony was called "a Soviet artist's practical creative reply to just criticism.'' In your journals, justify this statement with both musical and historical evidence. Below are a few links to get you started, but please feel free to use other resources as well.

http://lasr.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/prognotes/shostakovich/symphony5.html
http://www.rpo.org/s_7/s_118/p_749/Program_Notes_-_Shostakovich%27s_Fifth/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._5_%28Shostakovich%29

Shostakovich and Soviet Russia

Please research Soviet Russia and its relationship with musicians during Shostakovich's time and be prepared to discuss in class. Below are some resources to get you started. As you research, consider the following questions and respond in your journal. How did the government impact Shostakovich's music? What is socialist realism and how does Shostakovich's music relate? Have you seen evidence in your lifetime of how musicians or other artists have been influenced by factors outside of music, whether it be politics, current events, location, etc?

Resources to get you started:
"The Art of Fear" (Chapter 7) from The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/45326
http://www.russianlife.com/article.cfm?Number=570
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513251/Russia/38554/Soviet-Russia

Who is Dmitri Shostakovich?

Shostakovich Bio
After having read several brief biographies of Shostakovich, write in your journals a few questions you have. What sparked your interest? About what would you like to know more?

Symphony No. 5, Bernstein, NYP
Symphony No. 5, Mravinsky, Leningrad Philharmonic
Here are two links to performances Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47: IV. Allegro non troppo. Please consider the following, and write a response in your journals. After having sightread the piece in class today and hearing these recordings, what are your initial reactions? What do you hear? What caught your attention? Now that you know a little bit about Shostakovich's life, what do you think this piece might be about? Notice that these are recordings of a symphony orchestras. How do these differ from the band transcription? Did you notice anything different about the tempos at the end of the two recordings?

Dispositions

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education defines dispositions as "the values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behavior toward students, families, colleagues, and communities and affect student learning, motivation and development as well as the educator's own professional growth." In the long run, only through experience in the field of teaching can educators truly begin to understand the teaching competencies set forth by the NCATE. This is not to say that education classes cannot help a student learn by providing certain opportunities, however. While teacher education programs can discuss the competencies, students need the opportunity to put the competencies into practice. For example, we can talk about what it means to be reflective in a classroom, but students should take it upon themselves to be reflective of their own work on their own time. Instead of simply talking about collaborativeness, a professor may ask students to work in groups and discuss how the groups affected student learning. While teacher education classes can help teach and provide opportunities to practice most competencies, they can only be fully understood after a teacher has made an attempt to apply them in his own classroom. Music majors often need to be resilient as there is a great deal of stress involved. However, this stress level will not likely be comparable to the resilience needed in the first few years of teaching. Providing teacher education students with field experience is the best and to prepare students for teaching and putting their competencies into practice. However, there are certain competencies that even field experience will not help a teacher to understand. No one can be taught to be passionate, for example. Either you have that passion or you do not. What we can do is lead students toward an understanding of why passion is important and how they may be able to show passion in their teaching. Yet again, we can only do this by providing certain opportunities for teach education students. There is a Chinese proverb that says, “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” As long as we remember this, teacher education programs can be successful in leading students to understanding dispositions. The rest is up to the students.

Resilience

"In order to succeed people need a sense of self-efficiency strung together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life." Albert Bandura

Every teacher has to be resilient to survive in the world of education. Approximately 22 percent of teachers leave the profession within their first year. Teaching is a stressful job, the pressures of personal goals, school, state, and national standards, difficult children, difficult parents, all of these things add up and can take a lot out of a teacher every day. The important thing is for teachers to push through those stresses and maintain stability. There are many things teachers can do to be resilient.

• Develop a network of support and resources
• Remember that you will learn more in the first year or so of teaching than ever in your own education
• Do not try to do everything, but do try to be involved in the community
• Plan ahead, but be flexible
• Do not be afraid to ask for help or advise
• Take time for yourself
• Keep a file of notes and things to brighten your day
• Remind yourself of what teaching is all about

The following are websites with more information on reducing teacher stress:
Advice for First-Year Teachers
Survival Strategies for New Teachers
Avoiding Teacher Burnout
What to Expect
15 Stress-Busting Tips From Teachers
Teacher Staff Survival Kits

Humility

"...God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." James 4:6, NRSV

A teacher that practices humility always puts his students first. Only if he has his students' best interests at heart will those students be able to respect him as a teacher. There are many very young children that will believe anything you tell them. Unfortunately, sometimes teachers are wrong. Though it is important that teachers are confident in their subject areas, if a teacher is wrong, he should humble himself and correct his mistakes. This will often be difficult for more egocentric personalities, especially if it is a students that points out the teacher's flaw. Teachers must remember that they are held accountable for what students know and do not know. If a student has learned false information or no information at all, it is the teacher's responsibility to reflect on his teaching and find a solution.
In addition to teaching the facts, teachers are also held accountable for their teaching philosophies and styles. A good teacher must also humble himself by understanding that his particular teaching styles will not always be effective for every student. And again, he must reflection why that may be, and what he can do to change that when necessary. Ethics are also a part of the humility a teacher must accept. Even if a teacher may personally disagree with a school's code of ethics, he must still remember to keep the students best interests at heart. The same goes for other teaching philosophies such as how a teacher chooses to deal with behavior and other aspects of classroom management.