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School apologizes for ‘evil Jews’ assignment

April 13, 2013 by

“You must argue that Jews are evil” in a five-paragraph essay, using Nazi propaganda and personal experience “to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!”  Hoping to teach persuasive writing, critical reading of propaganda and  history, an English teacher at Albany High School (New York) told students to pretend the teacher was a Nazi official who needed to be convinced of their loyalty.

A third of students refused to write the paper. Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said the assignment should have been worded differently and apologized. ”I don’t believe there was malice or intent to cause any insensitivities to our families of Jewish faith,” she said.

Vanden Wyngaard said the exercise reflects the type of writing expected of students under the new Common Core curriculum, the tough new academic standards that require more sophisticated writing. Such assignments attempt to connect English with history and social studies.

I’m quite sure the teacher doesn’t believe Jews are evil. But the assignment was unwise. Plenty of people still think Jews are evil. Anti-Semitic trolls lurk in the comments section of most blogs. It’s current events, not history.

If the teacher had come up with a uncontroversial assignment, would it have taught critical thinking as effectively? asks Ann Althouse.

Why not ask students to write an essay urging Germans to vote for Hitler in 1933? (Advanced students could pretend to be American communists defending the Hitler-Stalin pact.)

Integrating history with other subjects requires forethought. A New York City math teacher raised hackles earlier this year with slavery story problems that seemed to trivialize slave ship deaths and whippings.

Update: The Albany teacher has been placed on leave, reports AP. That’s an over-reaction. Meanwhile, her classes are about to begin reading Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir, Night. 

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Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic and revolution in Denver

October 12, 2012 by

“Students in the Denver Public Schools need to know reading, writing and ‘rithmetic, but what about the fourth “r” — revolution? asks the Washington Times.

New teacher-assessment criteria described a “distinguished” teacher as one who “encourages students to challenge and question the dominant culture” and “take social action to change/improve society or work for social justice.” The district’s “Framework for Effective Teaching” also said teachers would be scored on whether “[s]tudents appear comfortable challenging the dominant culture in respectful ways.”

After critics complained, the district eliminated references to the “dominant culture” and “social change.”

The updated language says a top teacher “encourages students to think critically about equity and bias in society, and to understand and question historic and prevailing currents of thought as well as dissenting and diverse viewpoints,” and “cultivates students’ ability to understand and openly discuss drivers of, and barriers to, opportunity and equity in society.”

Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg said the “real intent” was to produce students who are “critical thinkers.”

But what if they want to think critically about the meaning of “social justice” or question the prevailing definition of “equity?”

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A bar exam for teachers?

July 3, 2012 by

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called for a bar exam for teachers at the Aspen Ideas Festival, reports Steve Clemons in The Atlantic. Weingarten is an attorney.

She said a bar exam for teachers today should emphasize the instruction of critical thinking.  That could change in the future as needs and expectations change.

Weingarten said that we could do with teacher screening and training what we are doing today with the “common core” — establish a national board that sets a ‘national standard’ and then strongly encourage, nudge, and seduce states to adopt the standard.

How high would the bar be?  Many would-be teachers have trouble passing basic skills tests. And how would teaching ability, as opposed to subject-matter knowledge, be tested?

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Teaching students to ask questions

May 20, 2012 by

What would education be like if students knew how to pose, prioritize, and use their own questions? Vastly better than it is now, argue Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana, authors of Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions (Harvard Education Press, 2011). If students learned how to formulate good questions, according to the authors, they’d be that much closer to becoming “independent thinkers and self-directed learners”  and practitioners of ”democratic deliberation.”

On the face of it, the idea sounds terrific. The ability to ask good questions can enhance both individual lives and common culture. Many people need special instruction in this skill; most of us have room for improvement. I am not convinced, though, that any of this requires the elaborate group processes that Rothstein and Santana describe.

The research started when the authors were working in a dropout prevention program. They heard from parents that they wouldn’t come to meetings at school because they “didn’t even know what to ask.” Rothstein and Santana began by giving them questions but then realized that this was only increasing their dependency—that they needed to know ”how to generate and use their own questions.” Over time, the authors developed a technique for teaching just that. They and others founded the Right Question Project, now known as the Right Question Institute, which teaches the technique to people around the country and abroad.

The book explains the Question Formulation Technique, which consists of six components: (a) a Question Focus; (b) a process for producing questions; (c) an exercise for working on closed and open-ended questions; (d) student selection of priority questions; (e) a plan for the next steps; and (f) a reflection activity. The authors provide numerous case studies to show how these components have played out.

Before starting the process, students are introduced to the four rules: “(1) Ask as many questions as you can; (2) Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any of the questions; (3) Write down every question exactly as it was stated; and (4) Change any statements into questions.” Students are supposed to reflect on these rules before proceeding. The authors explain:

The rules ask for a change in behavior, officially discouraging discussion in order to encourage the rapid production of questions. Students thus need to think about how they usually work individually and in groups. They name their usual practices and become aware of how they generally come up with ideas. They then must distinguish their present learning habits from what the rules require of them.

After receiving their Question Focus from the teacher, the students begin producing questions in groups. They are reminded to ask lots of questions and to refrain from judging, answering, or editing them. The teacher is not supposed to give examples of questions, even if the students are having difficulty.

From here, the students work on improving the questions. [Read more...]

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Critical thinkers who don’t criticize

February 21, 2012 by

NYC Educator headlines this Innovation in the Era of Evaluation.

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‘Adrift’ after college

January 27, 2012 by

People who didn’t learn much in college don’t do well as graduates, concludes a follow-up report by the authors of the controversial Academically Adrift study. Graduates who scored in the bottom quintile on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), a test of thinking skills, were more likely to be unemployed and living with their parents, compared to graduates in the top quintile, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education in ‘Adrift’ in Adulthood.

Thirty-six percent of undergraduates showed no gains in “critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills,” concluded sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in the earlier study, which became a book. Arum and Roksa surveyed more than 900 of the “Adrift” students to see how they fared after college.

The students scoring in the bottom quintile were three times more likely than those in the top quintile to be unemployed (9.6 percent compared with 3.1 percent), twice as likely to be living at home with parents (35 percent compared with 18 percent), and significantly more likely to have amassed credit-card debt (51 percent compared with 37 percent).

Top-quintile students also were more likely to say they follow the news and discuss politics.

That suggests “the general higher-order skills” tested by the CLA are “real and meaningful,” Arum said.

Though business majors didn’t show much growth on the CLA — and didn’t spend much time studying in college — they were the most likely to find full-time jobs. ”Perhaps it’s going to catch up to them down the road,” Arum said.

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Technology can personalize learning

October 6, 2011 by

Brookings is hosting a conference — available live online — on education technology.

Using Technology to Personalize Learning and Assess Students in Real-Time, a new Brookings study by Darrell West, looks at new ways to teach made possible by technology.

Imagine schools where students master vital skills and critical thinking in a personalized and collaborative manner, teachers assess pupils in real-time, and social media and digital libraries connect learners to a wide range of informational resources.  Teachers take on the role of coaches, students learn at their own pace, technology tracks student progress, and schools are judged based on the outcomes they produce.  Rather than be limited to six hours a day for half the year, this kind of education moves toward 24/7 engagement and learning full-time.

Technology alone won’t remake education, West writes.  Schools will need to change their organizational structure and rethink teaching and assessment.

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Cramming to the top

June 5, 2011 by

Chinese students spend years cramming for the two-day college entrance exam that will determine their future. The gaokao “robs Chinese students of their curiosity, creativity, and childhood,” concludes Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal at Peking University High School, in The Diplomat. But the killer exam is the fairest way to provide social mobility for bright and diligent students in a poor country that can’t afford to educate everyone.

China needs a system that can “resist the pull and power of the well-connected and wealthy,” Xuequin argues. That means it needs a national test.

If we were to test writing and thinking ability, then that would mean an automatic bias towards the children of well-educated parents who have from an early age discuss books, current affairs, and travel plans with their child over the dinner table. Moreover, to teach thinking and writing (or any soft skills such as creativity and collaboration) would require highly specialised and highly professional teachers who would naturally congregate in expensive private schools or prestigious public schools in Beijing and Shanghai. And if this were the case, China would just be like the United States, where education is monopolised by the self-perpetuating and self-interested educated elite, and social mobility through education becomes a distant dream for everyone else.

But China has 800 million peasants who depend on schooling as their child’s only chance out of the rice fields. Rural children don’t have access to the libraries, well-trained teachers, and intellectual spaces that wealthy cities can offer — all they have is their willingness to work hard to improve themselves. If Chinese believe in fairness and social mobility, then tests must be more about the student’s ability to memorise the textbooks he has access to, rather than about his ability to think critically, which is the result of making the most of a special set of resources available only to society’s elite.

What do you get? The gaokao. Chinese students will take the test June 7 and 8.

I don’t think social mobility through education is a “distant dream” in the U.S.  But it’s interesting to see the land of opportunity through other people’s eyes.

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Fixing America’s worst schools

March 30, 2011 by

Fixing “America’s worst schools” is no picnic, even with federal grants, reports the Christian Science Monitor.  Most of the story deals with Wendell Phillips Academy on Chicago’s South Side, where 27 percent of ninth graders read at the third grade level or below.

With a U.S. history class of only 10 juniors and seniors, Joyce Randolph has spent weeks discussing: Just how revolutionary was the American Revolution? She asks students to rephrase the question.

Finally she gets a response from one young man: “Did the Revolution bring about significant change?”

“Awesome!” says Ms. Randolph, as she points to another student. “Curtis, what does ‘significant’ mean?”

She’s met with a blank stare. Silence.

Last year, less than 5 percent of Phillips students met state academic standards. Fights were frequent.

Chicago Public Schools gave control of the school — and $5 million in federal turnaround grants over the next five years — to the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL).  The principal and all the teachers were fired. The new principal, Terrance Little, rehired only the two ROTC teachers. He instituted uniforms and a dress code, and a zero-tolerance policy for fighting. When he visited Phillips last year, it was a “zoo,” Little says.

“There was food fighting in the cafeterias, and kids were always fighting in the hallways,” recalls Eric Darko, a soft-spoken senior from Ghana, as he builds a complex tower after school for a Science Olympiad. “It was horrible bad. We didn’t learn anything.” This year, he says, things are better. “The teachers are always on time and on track.”

Freshmen now stay at school an extra hour each day. Little also made the grading scale tougher after seeing A students with abysmal ACT scores.

I used to be an AP student on the honor roll, and now I’ve got an F,” says Tyrice McClaren, who is eating an unappetizing looking chicken sandwich from the cafeteria.

The new teachers have agreed to common teaching practices, such as starting each class with a “Do now” assignment and ending with an “exit slip” on which students are asked how well they understood the material. They try to keep their expectations high.

In her class, Randolph uses a “document-based questions” curriculum, which asks students to examine historical papers for evidence. Originally designed for Advanced Placement students, it is a rigorous program that she believes pushes them to think critically. On the other hand, she notes, her class is still on the American Revolution in February . . .

It seems hopeless.  Twenty-seven percent of the ninth graders read at the third grade level or below.

Update:  Student misbehavior pushes teachers out of the profession,writes Will Fitzhugh. Students who want to learn are cheated, because their teachers have to spend so much time trying to control disruptive students. He wants to push out disruptive students.

It should be easy to send disruptive students home with access to online classes. They’re not likely to learn much, but their former teachers and classmates would benefit.

Phillips Academy’s new principal abolished in-school suspension and boosted the expulsion rate to control fighting and other zoo-like behavior.

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Teaching skills without content

February 26, 2011 by

“Emma Bryant” (a pseudonym) teaches at a New Tech public high school — one of 62 in 14 states — devoted to “21st-century skills.” Knowledge? Not so much, she writes on the Common Core blog.

We practice project based learning, utilize the latest technology, and hold to a mission of helping our students acquire “21st century skills.”

Innovation, collaboration and critical thinking are stressed, leaving little time for literature, history, poetry, music or theater.  The theory is that “most content, after all, can be Googled.”

Roughly once a month we present students with a new project which must result in a “product.” According to our model the more “real world” the product, the better. Real world, meaning the product mirrors what could reasonably be demanded in a corporate setting — from a redesigned company logo and slogan to a promotional video or a press release.

Students work in small teams to complete projects, with each team member receiving the same grade at the end. After all, it’s not about what individual students learn but the final product. Students are assessed on a handful of learning outcomes — collaboration, communication, innovation, work ethic, technological literacy, information literacy and content. Content usually makes up between 15 and 30 percent of a student’s grade.

In a 21st century classroom, “content is a shopping list of rubric indicators to be applied to the product.”

For example, students might work a quote from a short story into a reworded company slogan. Or perhaps they might work with Photoshop to create a company logo depicting an event from European history. They might write a press release in the style of a founding American document or create a user’s manual for a product using a particular rhetorical device mentioned in our state’s English Language Arts standards.

Teachers don’t teach content directly. Students are supposed to learn in teams or on their own with little or no direction from the teacher.

Dialogue, questions, critical thinking, and debate surrounding content are low on the list of things you will see in a 21st century classroom. And so students end up with convoluted ideas about history, a cursory understanding of and appreciation for literature, and a shaky foundation in math and science.

Also see Critical Thinking: More Than Words? in Ed Week’s Leader Talk.

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