Bless your heart, always trying to fix all that ails us, you liberal bastion.
You just went ahead and legislated that effective for the 2012-2013 school year, there shall be no more "unhealthful foods" in school cafeterias, vending machines, and so forth. Admirable, to be sure, but no more white bread for sandwiches? No more flavored milk (and I am sure, though I didn't yet read it, it's not unreasonable to suspect there will also be no more whole milk). I understand the obesity concerns, and agree that we don't need to be serving fried slop or sodas. I disagree that we need to eliminate white bread, flavored milks, etc. Which is better: to have a child drink whole milk, or no milk?
Here's a thought: instead of legislating what we can eat, why not just legislate that schools must bring back recess and physical education?
Just sayin'.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
I Stole...
... this image from Facebook posts of friends.
I think the bottom ought to read, "And those who've never taught, pass laws about teaching."
Even so, you get the point.
I think the bottom ought to read, "And those who've never taught, pass laws about teaching."
Even so, you get the point.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Glenn Beck ...
... is hosting a forum about education right now on his show. Unfortunately, the two children whose education I most value are making it difficult for me to watch right now, but we're "dvr'ing" it. Still, some quick points:
1. A lot of people ask me what I want to do, and why. Here's a longer version of my elevator speech answer to this.
I went to law school because I want to get involved with education policy. I taught in public schools, and regardless of what you think of public schools, the fact is that teachers do not make the rules, do not control the purse strings, and almost without question they do not have a voice as to curriculum, or policy. (I am not talking about unions or the NEA claiming to represent teachers. Those "voices" are a different issue altogether.)
No Child Left Behind is a perfect example of good intentions gone terribly wrong. People wanted accountability in the schools, and the best way to measure something quantitatively is to test it. Thus we entered the world of large-scale high-stakes testing. Any teacher could have told you in two seconds how the system would be gamed, the standards lowered, the passing scores manipulated, and ultimately the curriculum modified to reflect this dumbing down -- all to show that we "mastered" a test and we're all on the same playing field. Any teacher could have predicted that schools would follow a (sorry have to say it here) race to the bottom until classes became little more than a series of practice tests for the big test, with testing -- not teaching and learning -- the focus and the only concern of administrators.
The problem is that no one asks the teachers for their input. The people who make the rules and push down legislation and mandates have never been in a classroom as a teacher, and by and large they've only ever been in classroom as, and with other, good students. On the other hand, teachers neither get meaningful input nor care to leave the classroom, so they never have an opportunity to make the rules or policies -- or even, in a meaningful way, to influence them. (Seriously, had anyone in any role of influence asked teachers to predict the end result of NCLB, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now! And when I was "just" a teacher, sure, we were asked for our opinions, but they were either not presented to the powers-that-be, or they were repainted with rosier glasses. Our concerns were never heard, our input never valued other than for show.) The result is that we end up with a group of professionals being told how to do their jobs by people who have no earthly idea how to do those jobs. The logic seems to be, "I was a student; I know how to be a teacher." Huh? I was a patient, so I know how to be a surgeon? The fallacy is so obvious, and yet it is not just ignored; it's as if no one has ever even considered it. As far as I can tell, this is the only profession where everyone thinks they know how to do it better than the professionals.
I went to law school to get involved in education policy because I want to be the bridge between teachers and their concerns, and legislators and other policy-makers. I want to be a voice of reason for teachers' interests and concerns without being bullied, pushed and pulled by union and other political interests that really have nothing to do with teaching and learning. I went to law school because I have something to say, by golly, and I need the "credit and cache" a law degree gives me to be able to say it to people who are in power to effect a change. Maybe one day I will even hold one of those positions!
2. A teacher on the show was just speaking (among other things) about how she is mandated to have a certain amount of class time each day dedicated to small-group work and large-group work. She expressed frustration with the idea of small group work as it is presently mandated, because it small group work is not always appropriate or the best fit for the students' needs. Glenn Beck seemed to balk at this at first, offering, "But isn't that where we are all going?"
Here is the problem: Yes, in work situations it is important that we know how to work in groups. But there is no value in working in groups if you first don't know how to think. Knowing how to work in a group is an important life skill; knowing how to think so you have something to bring to that group and value to add is infinitely more important.
That's it for now. I'm eager to watch this forum from the start, and hopefully I'll be able to do that this weekend.
1. A lot of people ask me what I want to do, and why. Here's a longer version of my elevator speech answer to this.
I went to law school because I want to get involved with education policy. I taught in public schools, and regardless of what you think of public schools, the fact is that teachers do not make the rules, do not control the purse strings, and almost without question they do not have a voice as to curriculum, or policy. (I am not talking about unions or the NEA claiming to represent teachers. Those "voices" are a different issue altogether.)
No Child Left Behind is a perfect example of good intentions gone terribly wrong. People wanted accountability in the schools, and the best way to measure something quantitatively is to test it. Thus we entered the world of large-scale high-stakes testing. Any teacher could have told you in two seconds how the system would be gamed, the standards lowered, the passing scores manipulated, and ultimately the curriculum modified to reflect this dumbing down -- all to show that we "mastered" a test and we're all on the same playing field. Any teacher could have predicted that schools would follow a (sorry have to say it here) race to the bottom until classes became little more than a series of practice tests for the big test, with testing -- not teaching and learning -- the focus and the only concern of administrators.
The problem is that no one asks the teachers for their input. The people who make the rules and push down legislation and mandates have never been in a classroom as a teacher, and by and large they've only ever been in classroom as, and with other, good students. On the other hand, teachers neither get meaningful input nor care to leave the classroom, so they never have an opportunity to make the rules or policies -- or even, in a meaningful way, to influence them. (Seriously, had anyone in any role of influence asked teachers to predict the end result of NCLB, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now! And when I was "just" a teacher, sure, we were asked for our opinions, but they were either not presented to the powers-that-be, or they were repainted with rosier glasses. Our concerns were never heard, our input never valued other than for show.) The result is that we end up with a group of professionals being told how to do their jobs by people who have no earthly idea how to do those jobs. The logic seems to be, "I was a student; I know how to be a teacher." Huh? I was a patient, so I know how to be a surgeon? The fallacy is so obvious, and yet it is not just ignored; it's as if no one has ever even considered it. As far as I can tell, this is the only profession where everyone thinks they know how to do it better than the professionals.
I went to law school to get involved in education policy because I want to be the bridge between teachers and their concerns, and legislators and other policy-makers. I want to be a voice of reason for teachers' interests and concerns without being bullied, pushed and pulled by union and other political interests that really have nothing to do with teaching and learning. I went to law school because I have something to say, by golly, and I need the "credit and cache" a law degree gives me to be able to say it to people who are in power to effect a change. Maybe one day I will even hold one of those positions!
2. A teacher on the show was just speaking (among other things) about how she is mandated to have a certain amount of class time each day dedicated to small-group work and large-group work. She expressed frustration with the idea of small group work as it is presently mandated, because it small group work is not always appropriate or the best fit for the students' needs. Glenn Beck seemed to balk at this at first, offering, "But isn't that where we are all going?"
Here is the problem: Yes, in work situations it is important that we know how to work in groups. But there is no value in working in groups if you first don't know how to think. Knowing how to work in a group is an important life skill; knowing how to think so you have something to bring to that group and value to add is infinitely more important.
That's it for now. I'm eager to watch this forum from the start, and hopefully I'll be able to do that this weekend.
Monday, April 18, 2011
A Clarification on Tenure
Back in October, I posted a little bit about tenure. I was (and remain) pretty adamant that "tenure" does not grant with it a status of "unable to be fired." That being said, I do want to let you all know that I absolutely realize that it does have a de facto sense of that. I tried make that clear in the original post and realize that Iwas not as clear as I could have been.
So, here's the summary:
"Tenure" means that you have a right to due process and an appeal if you're fired. It does not entitle you to your job in perpetuity; merely to a right to know why you're being fired, and to be heard if you're forced out. And of course, you can't be fired arbitrarily. With tenure, you can only be fired for cause.
That being said, historically administrators do such a poor job of documenting cause, that by the time it is clear that a teacher really really really needs to go, administrators are way, way, waaaaay behind in having a justification for firing that tenured teacher. Generally speaking, unless the offense is egregious, the paper trail to show cause for the firing can't be created overnight. (You can't show a history of bad behavior if your history only started recently and therefore can be explained away...) So, if you have a lousy teacher who's getting worse, but no single "big thing" to point to, you can't fire this teacher unless you've documented the issues, however small, all along. Most of the time this doesn't happen. (Do I have data? No, but I have anecdotal evidence and heck, I watch the news and read education blogs!)
Moreover, once you've got this teacher you want to fire, very often the union steps in to represent the teacher. Now, whether you like it or not, those union reps and attorneys are doing their jobs to represent their client teacher. (Think, if you will, of the defense attorneys who represent the worst of the worst. Those criminals still have rights, and the attorneys don't defend the criminals, per se, but rather protect the rights of those criminals.) Same is true for the attorneys and union reps who step in to "save" the teacher's job.
I was speaking with an education law attorney recently who said she doesn't believe in tenure precisely because of this part of the process. Teachers who need to leave teaching (by any standards but their own) will fight, and put the administrators through such efforts and misery that the administrators almost universally say "never again." Quite frankly, it takes such time and effort (and therefore, money), and the process is made so miserable, that it is easier for school districts to let bad teachers languish until retirement, than to be repeatedly dragged through the mud.
I am not convinced I don't believe in tenure, though, because I have seen arbitrary decisions by petty administrators, and tenure generally works to balance that. It allows teachers to stand up for themselves without fear of retribution. (Before you go saying that there are other protections in place, I will say that there are infinite ways for an administrator to make a teacher miserable, any of which standing alone is perfectly "justifiable given the circumstances and needs of the school." To document and show a pattern of retaliation is difficult, if not impossible, and yet we all know it happens.)
What we do need is for administrators to start the evaluation process and paper trail immediately -- and we need an appeals process that isn't so miserable that it makes administrators want to forget it and keep terrible teachers around. This is where more robust teacher evaluations are very important, and I think we're starting to see a swing towards such evaluations nationally. Of course, there are still many issues to work out with teacher evaluations in general, but that's another post. My point is that richer, more detailed evaluations would help avoid this lack-of-documentation issue.
I'm going to try to sit in on some hearings in the future, to see how the tenure/firing process works in person. I don't know if I'll be allowed to do this, but if I can find a public hearing, I'll write more about what I see.
So, here's the summary:
"Tenure" means that you have a right to due process and an appeal if you're fired. It does not entitle you to your job in perpetuity; merely to a right to know why you're being fired, and to be heard if you're forced out. And of course, you can't be fired arbitrarily. With tenure, you can only be fired for cause.
That being said, historically administrators do such a poor job of documenting cause, that by the time it is clear that a teacher really really really needs to go, administrators are way, way, waaaaay behind in having a justification for firing that tenured teacher. Generally speaking, unless the offense is egregious, the paper trail to show cause for the firing can't be created overnight. (You can't show a history of bad behavior if your history only started recently and therefore can be explained away...) So, if you have a lousy teacher who's getting worse, but no single "big thing" to point to, you can't fire this teacher unless you've documented the issues, however small, all along. Most of the time this doesn't happen. (Do I have data? No, but I have anecdotal evidence and heck, I watch the news and read education blogs!)
Moreover, once you've got this teacher you want to fire, very often the union steps in to represent the teacher. Now, whether you like it or not, those union reps and attorneys are doing their jobs to represent their client teacher. (Think, if you will, of the defense attorneys who represent the worst of the worst. Those criminals still have rights, and the attorneys don't defend the criminals, per se, but rather protect the rights of those criminals.) Same is true for the attorneys and union reps who step in to "save" the teacher's job.
I was speaking with an education law attorney recently who said she doesn't believe in tenure precisely because of this part of the process. Teachers who need to leave teaching (by any standards but their own) will fight, and put the administrators through such efforts and misery that the administrators almost universally say "never again." Quite frankly, it takes such time and effort (and therefore, money), and the process is made so miserable, that it is easier for school districts to let bad teachers languish until retirement, than to be repeatedly dragged through the mud.
I am not convinced I don't believe in tenure, though, because I have seen arbitrary decisions by petty administrators, and tenure generally works to balance that. It allows teachers to stand up for themselves without fear of retribution. (Before you go saying that there are other protections in place, I will say that there are infinite ways for an administrator to make a teacher miserable, any of which standing alone is perfectly "justifiable given the circumstances and needs of the school." To document and show a pattern of retaliation is difficult, if not impossible, and yet we all know it happens.)
What we do need is for administrators to start the evaluation process and paper trail immediately -- and we need an appeals process that isn't so miserable that it makes administrators want to forget it and keep terrible teachers around. This is where more robust teacher evaluations are very important, and I think we're starting to see a swing towards such evaluations nationally. Of course, there are still many issues to work out with teacher evaluations in general, but that's another post. My point is that richer, more detailed evaluations would help avoid this lack-of-documentation issue.
I'm going to try to sit in on some hearings in the future, to see how the tenure/firing process works in person. I don't know if I'll be allowed to do this, but if I can find a public hearing, I'll write more about what I see.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
I had a glimpse into a Value-Added Classroom, and all I can say is "Go Back"
Do you remember the movie Say Anything, and the joke in Diane Court's valedictory speech, "I saw our future, and all I can say is, 'go back'"? Well, if value-added is our future, I'm with Diane. Maybe not as staunchly, but after what I read today, I am leaning that way.
An article in today's AJC starts out:
HOUSTON — Andres Balp’s Texas classroom provides a glimpse of the data-driven future facing Georgia teachers and students.
In his fourth-grade room at Houston’s Lyons Elementary, the focus is clear: measuring exactly how well students are progressing. Children are grouped by how they have done on standardized tests, making it easier for Balp to work with the lower-performing kids. A poster charts daily test scores — black ink for high marks, red for low — to show who’s on track to hit state exam goals. Students follow their own progress too: Taped to each desk is a small square of colored paper with the student’s goal score for a daily 12-question assessment.
Balp, a 17-year classroom veteran, holds the master key to all this data: a three-ring binder filled with graphs showing test scores for every student — and forecasts of how they’re expected to do going forward. It informs the interactions he has with his students.
His income hinges on this data. So does his job.
As for me, I am still reading everything about Value-Added data and evaluations that I can find. I tend to think it's okay, with some qualifiers (namely, that it is used, as the article goes on to say, for the teachers to help the students and not as a means to penalize teachers). But, when I read this article I was struck by the classroom that's described in the lead. In particular, I have to say that I would not want my children in this room, or any like it. Nor would I want to teach like this.
I don't want anyone tracking every minute grade like a fantasy baseball stat, and neither do I want every action in any classroom dictated by some metric, as the article would have us believe all good teaching must be. I am all for the extrinsic motivation of the old-fashioned "gold star" charts, but the red-and-black comments letting students know who's on track to meet state testing requirements? Doesn't anyone fear that goes a bit too far, perhaps losing the too-much-red-not-enough-black-grades kids to the phenomenon of a self-fulfilling prophecy? I absolutely believe (or really, know) that we need some data to evaluate where we stand, but this goes too far.
What really put me over the top, though, was the charts on the desk to tell us the daily assessment goals. Doesn't anyone see anything wrong with these "forecasts" of what is expected of each student, like abstract stock figures, with growth and plateau assessments calculated -- well heck, somewhere I am sure there are actuaries involved, at this rate -- to let us know what to buy and what to sell, and when, perhaps, to exercise our options? And what, pray tell, are those options? Do we really want our kids learning, as this would seem to be, by checklist? Today, you will get a 90% and then you've met your goal. All learning can cease. Check, check, check, list is done! No. These constant checklists and benchmarks send the WRONG message about learning. Not all that is worth doing in a day can be quantitatively measured, and I don't want my childrens' days determined by only that which can be quantitatively measured. Setting daily goals is important, but we need qualitative ones as well, and we don't need checklists on the desks to press home the point that we're all working towards a goal. What I fear these checklists convey is that we're working towards passing some test, as opposed to learning and growing and becoming better readers, or better at math, or better at writing. Do tests measure that? Sure. But we don't need to frame every single day's goals in terms of tests and cutoff scores. We need to learn (no, I am not so trite as to say, "for the sake of learning," though I'm close to it) and learn and learn, and the test scores will follow. "Goal" test scores should not dictate or determine our learning plan.
I know we're data-driven right now, and I know that in many ways value-added methods provide a much-needed antidote to teachers who don't belong in a classroom. Yes, it can help us show "cause" to get rid of the obvious bad apples.
I'm just not sure that the good outweighs the bad. I don't like this classroom of the future one bit. Not one. Little. Bit.
Here are another few excerpts for you to gnaw on while I head to bed. We come back to the law of diminishing returns, which I think I've mentioned before on this blog (and if not, which I will certainly discuss in the coming days), what to do when your kids are already at the top, and what to do when the evaluation method fails. Enjoy.
...
An article in today's AJC starts out:
HOUSTON — Andres Balp’s Texas classroom provides a glimpse of the data-driven future facing Georgia teachers and students.
In his fourth-grade room at Houston’s Lyons Elementary, the focus is clear: measuring exactly how well students are progressing. Children are grouped by how they have done on standardized tests, making it easier for Balp to work with the lower-performing kids. A poster charts daily test scores — black ink for high marks, red for low — to show who’s on track to hit state exam goals. Students follow their own progress too: Taped to each desk is a small square of colored paper with the student’s goal score for a daily 12-question assessment.
Balp, a 17-year classroom veteran, holds the master key to all this data: a three-ring binder filled with graphs showing test scores for every student — and forecasts of how they’re expected to do going forward. It informs the interactions he has with his students.
His income hinges on this data. So does his job.
As for me, I am still reading everything about Value-Added data and evaluations that I can find. I tend to think it's okay, with some qualifiers (namely, that it is used, as the article goes on to say, for the teachers to help the students and not as a means to penalize teachers). But, when I read this article I was struck by the classroom that's described in the lead. In particular, I have to say that I would not want my children in this room, or any like it. Nor would I want to teach like this.
I don't want anyone tracking every minute grade like a fantasy baseball stat, and neither do I want every action in any classroom dictated by some metric, as the article would have us believe all good teaching must be. I am all for the extrinsic motivation of the old-fashioned "gold star" charts, but the red-and-black comments letting students know who's on track to meet state testing requirements? Doesn't anyone fear that goes a bit too far, perhaps losing the too-much-red-not-enough-black-grades kids to the phenomenon of a self-fulfilling prophecy? I absolutely believe (or really, know) that we need some data to evaluate where we stand, but this goes too far.
What really put me over the top, though, was the charts on the desk to tell us the daily assessment goals. Doesn't anyone see anything wrong with these "forecasts" of what is expected of each student, like abstract stock figures, with growth and plateau assessments calculated -- well heck, somewhere I am sure there are actuaries involved, at this rate -- to let us know what to buy and what to sell, and when, perhaps, to exercise our options? And what, pray tell, are those options? Do we really want our kids learning, as this would seem to be, by checklist? Today, you will get a 90% and then you've met your goal. All learning can cease. Check, check, check, list is done! No. These constant checklists and benchmarks send the WRONG message about learning. Not all that is worth doing in a day can be quantitatively measured, and I don't want my childrens' days determined by only that which can be quantitatively measured. Setting daily goals is important, but we need qualitative ones as well, and we don't need checklists on the desks to press home the point that we're all working towards a goal. What I fear these checklists convey is that we're working towards passing some test, as opposed to learning and growing and becoming better readers, or better at math, or better at writing. Do tests measure that? Sure. But we don't need to frame every single day's goals in terms of tests and cutoff scores. We need to learn (no, I am not so trite as to say, "for the sake of learning," though I'm close to it) and learn and learn, and the test scores will follow. "Goal" test scores should not dictate or determine our learning plan.
I know we're data-driven right now, and I know that in many ways value-added methods provide a much-needed antidote to teachers who don't belong in a classroom. Yes, it can help us show "cause" to get rid of the obvious bad apples.
I'm just not sure that the good outweighs the bad. I don't like this classroom of the future one bit. Not one. Little. Bit.
Here are another few excerpts for you to gnaw on while I head to bed. We come back to the law of diminishing returns, which I think I've mentioned before on this blog (and if not, which I will certainly discuss in the coming days), what to do when your kids are already at the top, and what to do when the evaluation method fails. Enjoy.
Because the data predicts a student’s future performance based on past results, teachers have better insight into how their students should be scoring in class. If a student isn’t on track, the teacher can offer remediation. It also allows teachers to work with their colleagues to address weaknesses revealed by the data. For example, if one fourth-grade teacher isn’t “adding enough value” in math, and another fourth-grade teacher’s students aren’t scoring well in language arts, the two might swap classes for one subject.
...
But in some areas — including classes of highly advanced students and students moving from Spanish to English — a teacher’s true impact isn’t showing up in the test data, she said.
“We do have some principals who say, ‘My best teachers in these certain areas are not being identified as good teachers, but we know they are,’” Stevens said. “We’re trying to run the numbers, investigate and see where this is a problem, and where it is a perceived issue but not a real issue.”
Darilyn Krieger, a physics teacher at Carnegie Vanguard High, a Houston school for gifted and talented students considered one of the best in the nation, said she is proof value-added data can be misleading.
Krieger said last year she earned almost $6,000 because of her student-growth scores. But this year, the data showed her students didn’t learn a year’s worth of information, even though 100 percent are passing and doing college-level coursework.
That’s because the district uses a test that doesn’t measure what her students learned in the current year. Instead, it’s an exit exam designed to measure what they have learned in science over 11 years. Her chief concern is the value-added data’s lack of transparency — it isn’t specific enough to show where her students did not meet expectations.
“I am being measured and told I didn’t do my job, but they can’t tell me what I did wrong,” Krieger said. “I don’t care what my scores were. I don’t care if I get a dollar on this stupid award. I want my kids to do well because they know the material.”
...
Supporters of using student test data to rate and pay teachers almost universally agree that it can’t be the only factor used in decision-making. In Georgia, 50 percent of the evaluation of teachers in “core” subjects — those covered by standardized tests — will be based on the growth scores; the other half will come from classroom observations, lesson plans and student surveys. Core teachers, such as those in math and writing, make up about 30 percent of the educator workforce.
Note: this article is entitled In a Texas Classroom, Big Lessons for Georgia. It was written by Jaime Sarrio and appeared as the front-page story on April 3, 2011. Here's a link, though I am not sure it is a permalink: http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/in-a-texas-classroom-895675.html
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
I opened my "mouth" on Facebook ...
A friend of mine had a simple status on Facebook this morning: "When did teachers become the bad guys?" It led to a small discussion, part of which I joined. As an afterthought, I added that if anyone cared, I had a solution. Another friend of mine said she'd be curious to hear it. What? You, too? Great, because here is what I wrote:
Compulsory education only until 8th grade. After 8th grade, everyone can try high school, but you don't have to. If you choose to stay, you are choosing to NOT be a disciplinary problem. If you can't handle that, you are no longer invited. (Now, I don't mean we won't have fights or what-have-you. But we will not have chronic issues, because those children will be asked to leave.) In my utopian system, there will be alternative schools available.
Likewise, if you are in high school and want to drop out, by all means, drop out. The catch is, you can't go on welfare; you have to get a job. If, after twelve consecutive months, you decide you really do want an education, then you can come back. Except we'll have "night school" for you. After one school year there, you either graduate, or you are eligible to move back to regular day school. Or, you can choose to stay. The education is the same, but there are no extra-curriculars, etc. It is 100% academics-focused. Some kids just DO better in alternative settings, and this will be their chance. The difference between night school and day school is not so much punitive (although you DO have to earn the right back into day school) as it is that one setting is no-frills and the other has all the traditional accoutrements of high school.
In my system, a child can "age out" of eighth grade. You get two tries. After that, you must leave for twelve months. Last year, I taught eighth grade math. I had a student who was SEVENTEEN. He was in his third round of 8th grade -- and he was failing!! C'mon now. Really? What kind of influence do you think HE had on his classmates? Even better, what kind of influence do you think he had on the 6th graders at that school? Unacceptable. As a PARENT, I would not want this "adult" around my 6th-grade child; but the law said we had to let him. Ridiculous. And you can only begin to imagine, I'm sure, how some of the girls thought he hung the moon. Let's just say it was a terrible situation and if I had a sixth-grade daughter, I would have been beside myself with the fact that the "system" allowed this phenomenon.
In "The World According to Jen," we will also stop trying to push down classes like algebra into seventh and sixth grade. We will bring back recess, and gym, and let kids be kids. Then, when physiology and science and age together indicate that they are ready for abstract reasoning (right around 9th grade), we will teach more abstract stuff ... and we will STOP trying to cover everything a mile wide; instead we'll try to make sure that what we do teach, the kids actually learn. There's no race to finish the textbook, and no constant interruptions for standardized testing. I want our students to LEARN, not to learn how to bubble. OUr local schools here lose TWENTY DAYS a year to standardized testing in various forms. Um, did anyone count?! That's an entire school month spent on testing! Unaceptable. Won't happen in Jen's Utopian World.
Also, I think we need to go back to what we all had in school -- at least Longwood -- where we all had both academics and trades available to us. There shouldn't be this distinction of BOCES or trades as being somehow lesser than a "traditional" education. Trades are invaluable, and our society has made them second-class. Nope. EVERYONE should have to take some trade class, just like we all had to take tech-ed; I wish it had continued into a high school requirement!
Now, do I pretend to have all the answers? No, and this system of mine surely has issues. I haven't even gotten to special ed!
BUT -- this system eliminates chronic discipline problems, and I believe with all my heart that the root of every problem in our schools today starts with discipline. I don't care what anyone's home life is, or what disadvantages they have, etc., etc. If they are chronically disruptive and we allow it to continue, we ruin everything for everyone. Our schools today pander to the lowest-common-denominator. Our success rate is abyssmal because we leave behind the very kids who are capable and want to be successful. We throw them away to try -- often in vain -- to reach the bottom kids. I have asked this over and over and over again: WHY? (I am not talking about special ed kids here. I am talking about kids who don't WANT to do; not kids who aren't ABLE to do.)
Bet you're sorry you asked now, huh?! ;)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Math Education
Here is a link to a neat article in the New York Times about a young non-mathematician who is making math fun, or at least, making the fun-if-ication of math her goal. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18prof.html?_r=1&ref=education
I admire Ms. Hart, and certainly her intentions, as I have also aspired to such a goal.
But here is what I really took away from the article, and it was delightfully refreshing: What I especially appreciate is that neither Ms. Hart nor the Times, though they lament the too-frequent doldrums that a typical math class often is, purport to be able to change that with the typical suggestions of "group work," "investigations," and so forth. Because to me, so much of the richness of those types of activities can only really come when you've had a primer in the content. It's a little bit of the chicken-and-the-egg conondrum, but not entirely: you have to learn a little of the math to be able to explore it. I liken it to tinkering, really. My grandfather used to tinker with anything electronic. He knew enough of the gist of it to fiddle, and all his fiddling taught him more. Same for mathematics. Same, I imagine, for anything worth tinkering with.
So, thank you, Ms. Hart. You're right -- too many math classes are boring, dry, and miserable, and you're doing your part to show that math, in and of itself, need not be. And thank you again for not insisting that we can fix that with dog-and-pony shows instead of math classes.
Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could convince the curriulum gods to (a) slow down, so kids can study fewer concepts, but really learn them, and in slowing things down (b) build in some time to let us explore what is, really, the beauty and magic of mathematics?
Shouldn't that be part of any -- nay, every -- math curriculum?
I admire Ms. Hart, and certainly her intentions, as I have also aspired to such a goal.
But here is what I really took away from the article, and it was delightfully refreshing: What I especially appreciate is that neither Ms. Hart nor the Times, though they lament the too-frequent doldrums that a typical math class often is, purport to be able to change that with the typical suggestions of "group work," "investigations," and so forth. Because to me, so much of the richness of those types of activities can only really come when you've had a primer in the content. It's a little bit of the chicken-and-the-egg conondrum, but not entirely: you have to learn a little of the math to be able to explore it. I liken it to tinkering, really. My grandfather used to tinker with anything electronic. He knew enough of the gist of it to fiddle, and all his fiddling taught him more. Same for mathematics. Same, I imagine, for anything worth tinkering with.
So, thank you, Ms. Hart. You're right -- too many math classes are boring, dry, and miserable, and you're doing your part to show that math, in and of itself, need not be. And thank you again for not insisting that we can fix that with dog-and-pony shows instead of math classes.
Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could convince the curriulum gods to (a) slow down, so kids can study fewer concepts, but really learn them, and in slowing things down (b) build in some time to let us explore what is, really, the beauty and magic of mathematics?
Shouldn't that be part of any -- nay, every -- math curriculum?
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