Before I Zapped My Posts...
Jenny D
I was in the middle of a rant about what's wrong with schools. Several commentors (Elizabeth and others) left long comments.
For those who remember, I was ranting that schools serve rich white kids well. They do. Best example is TIMMS data. The highest scoring kids in the U.S. score as well as the highest scoring kids anywhere in the world. Our best and brightest are as good as the best and brightest anywhere. We are indeed producing scholars. They tend to be white and affluent, according to the statistics. They go to public and private schools.
The big difference between the US. and other nations is at the low end of the achievement spectrum. Our kids who score low are at the VERY bottom, well below the lowest scoring kids in other nations that we compare ourselves to (think Germany, Japan, Singapore, Denmark). Thus our average score is much lower than that of other nations. Not because our smart kids are scoring poorly, but because we have so many kids at the bottom, and our bottom is so low.
This is overlooked by education ideologists who just want to whine without solving problems. And the solutions don't cost more money. But they demand that we rethink the way we deploy educational resources. I'm talking as a nation, not a parent. Any individual parent wants what they want for their kid. But from a public policy perspective, it is better for the nation as a whole if we raise the floor.
All the organizational stuff--class size (and btw, the rich white parents in my district are the MOST vocal about getting smaller class sizes, and many send their kids to private schools in order to get junior into a class of 18), desk arrangements, etc.--is just moving deck chairs around on the deck of the Titanic. Education is in trouble because it's very core is rotten. We don't know how to teach teachers.
Remember something about the past. Whatever education we adults received was grounded in part in the notion that some kids were too dumb to learn. It was taught to prospective teachers in ed school. They came to classrooms assuming some of the kids were stupid and not worth teaching. I have lots of evidence on this, writings from Education Profs in the 1950s and 1960s. I was one of the "smart" ones, designated as being worth teaching. Drill and kill worked fine with me because I got a lot of attention and help. The dumb kids didn't, and drill and kill didn't work so well for them. But since they were already labeled dumb, it didn't matter anyway.
Here's what I think happened: These ideas began to change in the 1970s and teachers started to have to teach everybody. But they didn't know how. The Ed schools didn't either. They had never faced this problem before. So they dumbed everything down, and that worked fine for awhile. But now it's caught up to them. And the really hard work is finally at our feet. We have to figure out how to teach every kid, and teach every kid better. That is hard work....
This is nowhere near what I had before, but I remember some of it. I have this one saved in Word....
UPDATE: (Let's see if this works....) In my study, we find two kinds teachers in urban schools--those who really care and those who don't. Of those who care, some report working hard to come up with better ways to teach disadvantaged kids, and some report struggling just to do the work everyday in a challenging setting.
So, one group has mastered some practices that work, and has moved into a more demanding phase. But they often do so in isolation, and without good support or feedback. Remember, these teachers are working side by side with those who don't care, and those who struggle.
The fact that only a third or a quarter of teachers in these schools are achieving some kind of mastery is disturbing. We need to do more to a) help the skilled teachers maximize their practice, b) support the struggling teachers who care, and c) get rid of the people who don't care.
drcookie.blogspot.com |
