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The cult of success

December 22, 2011 By

The new issue of AFT’s American Educator features a cover story by Diana Senechal on The Cult of Success (pdf). “In research studies, newspaper articles, and general education discussions, there is far more talk of achievement than of the actual stuff that gets achieved,” she writes.

In Bipartisan, But Unfounded: The Assault on Teachers’ Unions (pdf), Richard D. Kahlenberg defends unions from attacks on all sides.

The issue also includes Meaningful Work (pdf), by Will Fitzhugh, on how writing history research papers prepares students for college and life.

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Educators can’t predict 21st-century skills

September 16, 2011 By

“Educators make bad prognosticators,”  writes Christopher L. Doyle, who teaches history and contemporary issues, in an Education Week commentary.

. . .  when school “reformers” try to reorder education based on “21st-century skills,” or what some describe as “teaching tomorrow’s skills to today’s students,” they show not only lack of prescience, but also ignorance of the past.

History suggests that public schools don’t know what skills are needed for the future, Doyle writes. A century ago, educators, business leaders, and politicians wanted to reform education.

 They stressed “efficiency” (today called “efficacy”), competition and nationalism (today “competing in a global economy”), and following directions (today “respect” and sometimes “collaboration”).

It was great preparation for World War I.

Doyle’s agenda is to teach history well to “high school students whose intellectual world is increasingly fragmented into sound bites, PowerPoint bullets, text messages, Facebook posts, and ‘tweets,’ and who appear rapidly to be losing the capacity for lengthy reading, synthesis of thought, and critical analysis.”

My agenda also encompasses linking the past to current events such as climate change, economic and debt crises, and wars on terrorism. I aspire additionally to teach empathy and ethics, qualities that I believe the discipline of history is uniquely capable of developing. And I seek to improve my students’ skill at writing while sharpening their capacity for critical thought.

It may not be “21st century,” Doyle writes, but “it appears far more realistic and hopeful to stick to my subject than to chart a suspect course toward a badly drawn image of the future.”

 

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Teaching about 9/11

September 9, 2011 By

Teachers are trying to explain 9/11 to students who don’t remember it very well — or at all. A variety of lesson ideas and resources are available, but most teachers are on their own, reports AP.

New York City’s updated Sept. 11 curriculum “includes tips on how to help students cope with learning about the horrors of that day, a study of the art inspired by the terrorist attacks and a history of the building of the 9/11 memorial.”

The Sept. 11 Education Trust also has come out with lesson plans. It was founded by Anthony Gardner, whose 30-year-old brother, died in the World Trade Center.

New Jersey has adopted, but not required, a curriculum developed by families of 9/11 victims, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

(Maryellen) Salamone said the loss of her husband “inspired me and I inspired the curriculum, and maybe the curriculum will inspire hundreds and thousands of kids. Then, one death will make a huge difference and I can sleep better at night.”

John Salamone, 37, died in the World Trade Center, leaving his wife and three young children.

“Learning From the Challenges of Our Times: Global Security, Terrorism, and 9/11 in the Classroom” is a free online K-12 curriculum.

Derrick Owings, a Cherry Hill High School West teacher will teach the 9/11 course to his ninth-grade world civilization classes and 11th- and 12th-grade psychology classes.

“We’ll look at the psychology of terrorism,” he said. “What makes a seemingly rational, mentally healthy human being into a terrorist?

“And from a world civilization side,” he said, “we’ll look at the history of human behavior through conflict and turmoil. One man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot.”

Fordham’s Teaching about 9/11 in 2011 highlights “the danger of slighting history and patriotism in the rush to teach children about tolerance and multiculturalism.”

“What one wants to know, however, is whether the rest of the curriculum is there, too: the civics part, the history part, the harsher lessons about how difficult it is to safeguard American values from those who despise them in an increasingly menacing world,” Chester E. Finn Jr. writes in the introduction.

Some teaching materials are excellent, Finn believes, citing the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s lessons for high school students, which are used in New York City.  “Others, alas, are wimpy, biased, or apologetic and may well do teachers and pupils more harm than good.” Exhibit A: The U.S. Education Departent’s 9/11 Materials for Teachers.

The Education Department’s resource list doesn’t lead off with history, writes Valerie Strauss on Answer Sheet.

The first item is this: “Positive School Climate and 911 — Resources for helping create and maintain a positive school climate and preventing bullying, harassment, and discrimination.

Answer Sheet lists other teaching resources from the National History Education Clearinghouse’s In Remembrance: Teaching September 11.

Smithsonian Institute K-12 lessons

9-11 Commission records on how and why Sept. 11 happened

School Library Journal lessons

National Geographic Remembering 9-11

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Rap and rote

August 15, 2011 By

Students are rapping the Regents exam, reports the New York Times, which visits a U.S. history test-prep class for Spanish-speaking immigrants.

“Follow along closely so it won’t get convoluted,” (Jamel) Mims, 25, rapped, flicking his wrist to the beat. “The supreme law of the land is called the …”

He paused. The girls conferred in their native language, Spanish, scrambled for the marker, and hoisted their whiteboard into the air. “The Constitution!” they shouted in English, reading off their answer.

Fresh Prep, a program run by the Urban Arts Partnership, has raised $400,000 in donations to write Regents raps and deliver the review curriculum. The goal is to help students memorize facts and  “bridge the engagement gap,” Mr. Mims said.

Two dozen rap songs with rapid-fire lyrics . . .  review global history and American history. Students are given a 250-page workbook in which to fill in the blanks and write answers, and they are supposed to download the songs onto their MP3 players and memorize them at home.

So far, Fresh Prep claims more rap review students pass the exam, but says “hip-hop as a review method is hard to teach to a neophyte teacher. Now Urban Arts is revising its strategy to make sure a Fresh Prep artist instructor is always in the room.”  That sounds expensive.

Though I’m no connoisseur of hip hop, the rap seems impossibly “convoluted” in syntax, complex in vocabulary and downright dreadful. The students had trouble following the Constitution rap, even with a text, the reporter notes.

“First Amendment, that’s freedom of speech, needed that desperately
Freedom of expression, plus church and state separately
Right to bear arms the deuce, Third the quartering of troops
Four: protection from search and seizure unless a warrant is used.”

Let’s say the students memorize the words. Will they understand the ideas?

I was amused by this section:

Now the States had powers for themselves preserved
Powers not belonging to the Federal Gov. are Reserved
These include making drivers license regulations
Laws for marriage and divorce and standards for education.

Perhaps Arne Duncan should try a little rap review.

 

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Attack of the reading tests

August 9, 2011 By

Rachel Levy hoped to teach history and geography while developing her high school students’ reading and writing skills. But the principal of her inner-city D.C. school — pre-Rhee — told social studies teachers to spend one-fifth of class time teaching the reading test, Levy writes on Core Knowledge Blog.

Teachers were told to make a chart for each student showing how well he or she did on each skill, such as “context clues.”

Then I was supposed to target my lesson plans to teach and remedy each student’s individual weaknesses. . . . such instruction and data collection had to be documented in our lesson plan books and during classroom observations.

Teach and remedy each student’s individual weaknesses?

While testing doesn’t require such stupidities, few educators have the patience to rely on a “well-rounded and knowledge-rich curriculum” to raise scores gradually, Levy writes.

She tried to persuade colleagues that the way to raise test scores was to “teach content and have students read and write as much as possible.”  No one agreed.

Now raising three children, Levy blogs at All Things Education.

Update:  You need to know how to teach but you also need to know your subject very well, writes Michael Bromley, a social studies teacher who guest-blogged for Rick Hess on Ed Week.  “No matter the teaching strategy, if you don’t have something valid, interesting, and important to teach there will be no learning.”

In June, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released a report showing core historical illiteracy among American school children. In response, famed historian David McCullough told the Wall Street Journal, “People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively because they’re often assigned to teach subjects about which they know little or nothing.”

Wait a minute, there, David, hold on: modern pedagogy states that qualified, education-proficient teachers can teach anything, so long as the correct strategies for student engagement are followed. Isn’t that the problem? David replies, “You can’t love something you don’t know any more than you can love someone you don’t know.” Amen, brother . . .

If you don’t know the subject, your students won’t either, Bromley concludes.

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Teaching compassion for refugees

June 23, 2011 By

In New York’s South Bronx, a ninth-grade social studies teacher is spending five weeks on curriculum based on Iraqi refugees’ experiences, reports Learning Matters. The show aired on PBS Newshour this week and will be rebroadcast.

The teacher wants her tough-shelled students to learn to empathize with people who have even worse problems than their own. Students look at photos of refugees and imagine their lives. They’re told to list the 10 things they’d take with them if they had to leave home in five minutes. Later, told they have to dump half their possessions, one boy gives up his electronics in favor of “my mom, my sister, my other sister.”  It’s sweet, but is it social studies?

I can’t help wondering what the students aren’t learning in those five weeks. The teacher is skipping the standard curriculum. What’s the trade-off?

As far as I can tell, students aren’t asked to read literature that deals with the refugee experience, such as The Kite Runner (Afghanistan), which could be a powerful empathy builder. Dave Eggers’ What is the What? (Sudan) is supposed to be good. Too difficult to read?

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Don't know much about history

June 14, 2011 By

What’s important about that bearded guy with the stovepipe hat? What advantage did American colonists have over British troops during the Revolutionary War? What country allied with North Korea during the Korean War? American students don’t know much about U.S. history, concludes the Nation’s Report Card 2010. History is the weakest of all subjects tested.

Eighth graders made some progress from 2006 to 2010, while scores were flat at the fourth an 12th-grade level. However, only 17 percent of students score at or above the proficient level.

Since 1994, scores have risen at all three levels. Black and Hispanic fourth and eighth graders have made significant gains since 1994. That’s the good news.

Not so good: Only a third of fourth graders can identify the purpose of the Declaration of Independence.

Two percent of 12th graders can name the social problem — school segregation — that Brown vs. the Board of Education was supposed to correct, even after reading: “We conclude that in the field of public education, separate but equal has no place, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

While some questions are multiple choice, others require students to write a short response. Frequently, they are asked to interpret maps, pictures, posters, graphs, original documents and quotations, such as explaining the historical context of a slave letter, using a map to explain the purpose of the Lewis and Clark expedition or analyzing a graph of the declining number of farms.

Questions about minorities and women are common: Identify a role of women during the American Revolution. Explain how World War II affected African-Americans’ struggle for civil rights. Study an 1849 picture of a Sioux encampment and identify three ways the Sioux used natural resources.

I had to think about this eighth-grade question:

For centuries, a young man who wanted to learn a craft was apprenticed to a master craftsman who taught him the necessary skills. Why did the apprenticeship system begin to decline in the first half of the 1800′s?

A. The apprenticeship system was considered unsuitable for the increased number of women working outside the home.

B. The growth of the factory system led to a decreased need for skilled labor.

C. Many young men chose to become farmers instead of craftsmen.

D. Craftsmen began to use unskilled immigrant labor in their shops.

(The answer is B.)

You can test yourself at all three grade levels.

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Lashing the anti-testing backlash

March 23, 2011 By

To protest curiousity-crushing test prep, Penn State Professor Timothy Slekar told his 11-year-old son to write “I prefer not to take your test” on the state exam.

He has been forced to complete worksheets in language arts and mathematics. He can alphabetize spelling words and find the main idea of a paragraph. He’s had practice in sequencing. He can round numbers. He can add, subtract, multiply and divide with fractions and decimals. And he has mastered the scripted art of estimating (Who knew there were incorrect estimates?). He has had multiple PSSA practice tests and according to these tests my son is ready.

. . . But what has been lost during these past five months? He sits in social studies and science classes that have been shortened to allow more time for reading and math instruction. He hasn’t been given the opportunity to engage real children’s literature.

Inspired by Slekar, a Pennsylvania mother opted her sons out of testing, falsely claiming a religious objection.

But there’s a backlash against the anti-testing backlash. At Jezebel’s Learning Curves, Anna North argues that testing is necessary, especially for children whose parents lack the “time, education and English proficiency” to monitor their children’s learning and spot when they’re falling behind.

Standardized testing is rarely fun — and it could almost certainly be improved — but it’s not nearly as antithetical to real, deep learning as its detractors suggest. Learning how to study will serve kids well throughout life — and while stimulating curiosity is important, most adults are probably glad our curiosity was supplemented by requirements from time to time.

If well-educated parents scuttle standardized testing, their children are likely to learn critical reading and math skills, North argues. Other people’s children may not.

Like North, I see no problem in teaching Pennsylvania children to find the main idea in a paragraph, or to add, subtract, multiply and divide with fractions and decimals, or to learn sequencing, rounding and estimating. Apparently, the school is teaching in a boring way and without integrating reading and math into history and science. But it is possible to teach reading comprehension and math skills without drudgery.

Standardized testing is not the devil,” writes Robert Pondiscio. “Test prep is the devil.” Time-wasting test prep is most likely to be a problem at high-poverty, low-performing schools, he adds.

At my South Bronx elementary school, we had a Teachers College consultant who encouraged us to ”teach tests as a genre of literature.”  But even that pales in comparison to a grad student of mine who was mandated to spend two hours per day on test prep from the first day of school.

Instead of boycotting the tests, parents should demand good teaching, Pondiscio writes.

. . . I would march into the school office the first day of school with the following bargain:  “I’m sure you agree the best test prep is great teaching and a robust curriculum, Ms. Principal.  So let’s keep our focus right there.  Don’t worry about spending my child’s time and your budget dollars on test prep materials. Because if they show up in our kids’ classrooms, we can promise our kids won’t be showing up for the test.”

Pro-testers think anti-testers are like parents who won’t vaccinate their children, suggests Alexander Russo.

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38% flunk citizenship questions

March 21, 2011 By

When the Daily Beast asked 1,000 Americans to answer questions from the U.S. citizenship exam, 38 percent failed to answer six out of 10 correctly, reports Newsweek.

According to the Beast, only 27 percent of Americans knew we fought the Cold War to turn back communism. Only 19 percent can name one power of the federal government. Only one third could name the economic system of the U.S., though it’s likely the test rejected “screwed up” as an answer.

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U.S. states earn ‘D’ in history

February 16, 2011 By

Most states’ U.S. history standards are “mediocre to awful,” concludes a Fordham Foundation study. Nationwide, the average state got a D. Eighteen states earned F’s.

South Carolina earned an A and Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York and D.C. earned an A-.  So did the U.S. history framework used by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). 

On Ed Next’s blog, A. Graham Down praises David Awbrey’s A Journalist’s Education in the Classroom, which describes his attempt to teach history to middle school students who thought “any kind of learning, especially history” was “totally irrelevant to their lives.”

. . . despite David Awbrey’s heartfelt and totally admirable championship of the liberal arts, and his best intentions to the contrary, his book is more of a depressant than a source of inspiration.
. . .  David Awbrey’s courage and tenacity should be applauded. His efforts to revitalize traditional history instruction are both imaginative and compelling.

But it’s not one of those books where the nice white lady (or gent) saves the day.

Update: Texas corrected the liberal bias and then introduced a heap of conservative bias, writes Mike Petrilli.

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