the pedagogy of poverty vs. good teaching

The Pedagogy of Poverty versus Good Teaching

By Martin Haberman

The title of the article is the pedagogy of poverty versus good teaching that is written by Martin Haberman. Martin Haberman is a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wiskonsin, Milwaukee. Firstly, he earning his master’s and a doctorate in teacher education from teacher collage, Columbia University, he came to UWM in 1962.Mr. He has been  awarded honorary doctorates of Humane letters from Rhode island collage and the states university of new York. Forty six years later, Haberman is still working to improve teaching in urban schools. This is third article before teaching Behaviors. This article discusses 5 main points, namely the pedagogy of poverty (the function of urban teaching), reform and the pedagogy of poverty, the nature of urban children and youth, good teaching and the rewards of not changing. The purpose of his article is analyzing the main issue of teacher’s act both of strategy and knowledge in class that is categorizing as good teacher or it has pedagogy of poverty.

Martin Haberman begins his article by stating that what is the function of urban teaching? Where, this point is analyzing teachers act and knowledge that could give standard or high level in learning through of their teaching. This article also focused in urban teaching. He said that there are fourteen the core functions of urban teaching, namely: giving information, asking question, giving direction, making assignments, giving test, reviewing test, assigning homework, reviewing homework, settling disputes, punishing noncompliance, marking paper and giving grades. Teaching is what teachers do. Learning is what student do. The second point is reform and the pedagogy o poverty. Pedagogy o poverty is not successful to implicate it in urban school. Because, it is just a theory that will make student bored and does not care about it. However, it could success if we used it with more practice than theory. Therefore, student and teachers are engaged in different activities. The third point is the nature of urban children and youth. Where, Teacher are in charge and responsible. Students are those who still need to develop appropriate behavior. When students follow teacher’s direction, appropriate behavior is being taught and learned. The fourth and fifth point is good teaching and the rewards not changes. Good teaching is what we do in class such as our strategies, our behaviors in class and how to manage the class time. So, it is more focused to teachers act in class. However, in some schools this point is so difficult to change. Especially, teacher’s strategies and their characters that always bring and related with school business and family. The all of functions above are describing as making up the general impression of what people think about teaching. Teachers often come into the profession disillusioned with their good intentions and will get burnt out by constantly having to be a direct authoritarian. There is a main different between what teaches think the job will be versus what it actually requires. The current set up allow student to succeed without becoming too involved and thoughtful if the teaching style based on the fourteen basic characteristics. The teacher whose describe their students can change but they need two things namely: the whole school faculty and school community to be the unit of change and they must be persistent and patient because there will be resistance to change. Teacher is misled to believe they have control in their classroom and often urban teachers are punished if they cannot elicit compliance from their students. Good teaching is the creation of good learning environment which should develop the students understanding of human differences.

The author’s article is good for reading. However, he does not give an example of the real object of his article. Seems like, it explained urban teaching in generally. From the all of characteristics above I was quite frankly confused. How is that anything other than just plain teaching? My view of teachers and teaching has always included those activities. How do you teach without things like monitoring, testing, grading and etcetera? How can teacher, parents, and community except anything differently? Is it possible to describe a teaching approach that can serve as an alternative to the pedagogy of poverty? Why are there rich people and poor people, able and disable, urban and rural, multilingual and monolingual, highly educated and poorly educated? Not only that, what strategy that have to apply in some of cases when students ask teacher” Hei sir, you are so smart how can we become like you? So, is the teacher just say read and read? It is so simple. I think he/she must give a strategy that could build their character in the future. But, how they would say it to them? Not only that, he also explained that teacher as a responsible guidance.  It makes me confused. How about the teacher has high pedagogy and good teaching but she/he instruction the students in insult valley? The writer has to compare the positive case and negative case to know is it can categorize as a good teacher or not? 

From the all of explanation article above, it concludes that the author is preaching for reform and a new system for teaching urban students. One thing that can categorize as main point is making people instead of just getting them through high school or helping the pass GED (General Education Development) because there is so much more education then just passing. Students also need to learn how to be a part of society and have more than just the basic skill.