Re: Nancy's Fingerpainting

["Karen Degerstrom" <kdeg@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I understand that state standards in michigan have gone from the good
intentions of integration of the LA's throughout the curriculum to going
into the hands of BIG Business to make for them future good employees. State
tests and benchmarks have become curriculum. On the other hand state content
standards and benchmarks and tests have been in the past so very blatantly
ignored by teachers and districts that the people who want all students to
become literate in all subjects have created incentive for participation by
paying students up to $2,500.00 for purposes of college tuition to the
college the student actually does attend.
----- Original Message -----
From: Geoff Sirc <sirc@umn.edu>
To: <cwonline@nwe.ufl.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 7:09 PM
Subject: Nancy's Fingerpainting


> I really liked the last post by Nancy Patterson, where she talked about
that
> idea of textual play.  It gets at something I hoped this dicussion would.
> Let me sum it up by trying to recreate a conversation I had at a party
with
> a K-8 teacher.  We were, as I remember, talking about some
> poverty-of-technology situation at my kid's school (he's in 3rd grade).
It
> had to do with the fact that about a third of the computers in the media
> room are down, so that when his class comes in for their computer option,
> several of them have to team up (I know, can be good or bad).  So
pro-techno
> person that I am, I mused that this was really a shame, some learners
would
> become passive, screw around, etc.  And the teacher said something like "I
> don't know.  I don't think it's so bad.  I'm really tired of the big push
> toward technology at this level.  I think it's really important that kids
do
> things like finger-painting and drawing and dancing.  I'm really not
> convinced that pushing everything onto the computer is such a good idea."
I
> have been haunted ever since by that comment.
>
> What I like about Nancy's post is that it answers that teacher about as
well
> as you can--there is other kind of finger-painting, this digital
> finger-painting that Nancy's students seem to be doing (and yes, Nancy,
this
> particular fyc teacher  [i.e., me] would welcome very much students who
were
> into that).  But, like I say, she answers it about as well as you can,
which
> means I still am haunted by that comment.  There's something about just
> messing around with basic materials and one's body (finger-painting,
> dancing) that seems crucial to happiness and a good world.  I don't want
to
> just say that digital finger-painting is, like, an acceptable substitute,
> the race is progressing, the virtual flesh, welcome to postmodernism, next
> please.
>
> Plus, I would really like you experts in K-12 to talk about how state
> standards are crimping your act.  Every teacher (and parent) I talk with
> here is appalled at the cynical compromise that has become public
education.
> When so much else in the curriculum has been tossed in the name of the
tests
> they'll have to take, how can something as notoriously fringy and play-ful
> as technology not be either 1.) the first thing to come under suspicion
> (besides finger-painting) or 2.) compromised, reduced, work-book-i-cized
to
> aid in the high-stakes effort?
>
> G Sirc
>
>
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