From Laurie: new topic related to education:
The Atlantic The Radical Case for Teaching Kid's Stuff
The Atlantic American Students Reading
The two links are very similar. The first one is more recent. I am halfway through the Wexler book on this topic. I think if we want to improve education focusing on knowledge in elementary schools will have a much greater impact than getting rid of teacher's unions.
The Atlantic The Radical Case for Teaching Kid's Stuff
The Atlantic American Students Reading
The two links are very similar. The first one is more recent. I am halfway through the Wexler book on this topic. I think if we want to improve education focusing on knowledge in elementary schools will have a much greater impact than getting rid of teacher's unions.
30 comments:
Laurie, I hadn't ever thought about it that way, but it's absolutely right. The way we learn language or math or anything else is in context, usually in areas of knowledge in which we are interested. Or for kids, areas in which they can become interested.
I don't know that getting rid of teachers' unions would not help, since they may be the ones (through control of the educracy) perpetuating this failed approach.
Most teachers are perpetuating the failing skills based approach to reading.
If we want schools to change to more effective knowledge based instruction it is going to have to come from administration - superintendent or principal or others in charge of curriculum and instruction.
One teacher, such as me, putting more of a focus on knowledge can only make a slight difference.
Some more about the Sources
So Many Best Ways, so little time.
I am puzzled by who these folks are that are only focusing on Reading, Writing and Math?
RDALE Report Card Companion Guide
I am curious... How would you do this with:
- 6 classes / teachers of 3rd graders
- 25 - 28 kids in the classroom
- all of whom have different experience levels and interests?
Here is the Rdale curriculum site
the lower the test scores the more the focus is solely on reading, writing, and math.
I bet students in your district get very little science or social studies in grades
K-3.
Here is another link:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/dont-blame-the-teachers/500552/
the core knowledge foundation wants to bring much more content into schools starting in kindergarten
https://www.coreknowledge.org/
Laurie, PMFBI, but to John's question: six classes of third graders all at different levels should not occur if they had proper schooling K-2, as Mississippi used to do. But even at this point, I would suggest that the kids be divided up according to that experience level so that one teacher can take the whole class from their common point on up to where they should be. As for interests, kids are pretty curious. They can become interested in about anything, if it is presented in an interesting way and not as something they "gotta learn."
Better yet, we could put the kids on CAI, so each can have their own personal "teacher," and proceed at their own pace.
The Atlantic Don't Blame the Teachers
Core Knowledge
Laurie,
How does this vary from Common Core
Jerry,
Most kids are pretty much the same when they pop out of the womb...
How about we spend more effort earlier ensuring that one sub-group does no get behind?
about the difference between core knowledge and common core-
common core is the reading standards and the way they are implemented in my school (and I think most others) is with a strong focus on reading skills such as main idea, cause and effect, sequence of events, text features, etc. These standards do recommend reading 50% non fiction books / essays but does not specify any particular content.
core knowledge specifies tons of specific science and history content starting in kindergarten.
How about we spend more effort making it possible to teach kids WITHOUT assigning them to "sub groups"? I'm telling you it worked in Mississippi. Kids came into 1st grade (no public kindergarten) with widely different knowledge/skills/advantages. By 3rd grade those differences were largely gone. All you are doing with your continued insistence that the Almighty State grab these tiny minds from Day One and protect them from anything their parents may or may not teach them, is to give a massive excuse to the failing public school system for their continuing tragic failures.
Laurie has proposed a very reasonable change that would substantially improve educational outcomes for all kids. Why are we not doing it? It's not like it costs more money, and if it did it would be worth it, unlike the money we now throw at education in the belief it helps.
I think Jerry and I might agree somewhat on this topic. Core knowledge is whole group instruction that is essential for Ell or low-income kids to try to level the playing field with their more privileged peers - who are being read to and taken places, signed up for activities etc.
This is an interesting idea. How would one go about getting something like this started at rdale? Something needs to be done to improve reading scores.
Molly
Molly,
That implies again that they are not already doing this.
Based on the information I linked to and my "dated" experience in the district.
They teach a lot more than reading, writing and math.
The challenge is that though Jerry says he wants to teach kids WITHOUT assigning them to "sub groups". His Mississippi stories are all based on assigning kids to sub-groups. He has never provided data that it worked. Just the usual "trust me".
The concept worked something like this:
- Sort the kindergarteners by academic capability
- Work harder with the challenged kids who have questionable support at home. (I mean that is why they are behind)
- Somehow they catch up with the normal and gifted kids who have stronger support networks at home.
The problem is that what actually happened was this.
Laurie,
How did this get to being considered privileged?
"privileged peers - who are being read to and taken places, signed up for activities etc"
How about we reset your warped scale of measurement?
Parent(s) who DO the following are normal. "being read to and taken places, signed up for activities etc"
Parent(s) who DO NOT DO the following are negligent. "being read to and taken places, signed up for activities etc"
I think we discussed this back here
Here is some more Mississippi Education history.
By the way, RDale used to sort middle and high school kids somewhat.
The PRE-AP, IB and other honors programs kept the good support students in certain classrooms. This kept a lot of families like mine from leaving the district.
And of course Spanish Immersion and the Stem School protect the elementary kids from our districts diversity.
I am not what will happen when they knock down these logical walls.. How much academic / wealth flight will there be? Then of course the money goes with the kids and the RDale budget suffers while the family / student mix gets more challenging.
Here is some more Mississippi Education history.
By the way, RDale used to sort middle and high school kids somewhat.
The PRE-AP, AP, IB and other honors programs kept the well supported academically focused students in certain classrooms. This kept a lot of families like mine from leaving the district.
And of course Spanish Immersion and the Stem School protect the elementary kids from our district's diversity.
I am not sure what will happen when they knock down these logical walls.. How much "academic / wealth flight" will there be? Then of course the money goes with the kids and the RDale budget suffers while the family / student mix gets more challenging.
As someone who works with likely one of the the most at risk school populations in the state I see kids such as my own 2 children as highly privileged compared to my students. Most parents at my school speak very limited English and don't read English. They also have limited money for vacations and activities.
They are not building vocabulary and knowledge through reading and conversations and museum visits like we did in my family. When my kids were young we regularly went to both zoos, the science museum, childrens theater and art institute. We also went to about 10 national parks where they did activities to become junior rangers.
Here is a link to a core knowledge booK:
https://www.amazon.com/First-Grader-Needs-Revised-Updated/dp/0553392387/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GBBXFLTMW1L&keywords=what+your+first+grader+needs+to+know%2C+e.d.+hirsch&qid=1566863650&s=gateway&sprefix=hirsch+what+your+first+%2Caps%2C354&sr=8-1
Read the description of curriculum for first grade. I think there are about 20 schools in Minnesota teaching this content.
First Grader Needs
Privilege: "a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor"
Neglect: "to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness" "to give little attention or respect to"
Sorry Laurie, I disagree. The parent(s) in your school made a choice to come here and to have more kids than they can afford if they can not afford our museums, zoos, libraries, parks, etc.
And worse yet they chose to protect themselves from American culture, and limit their children's advancement by enrolling in a school full of Somali families. The responsible normal thing to do would be to learn your new country's primary language ASAP, help your kids learn it and immerse them with other Americanized kids.
The neglectful thing to do is to resist their children becoming Americanized.
An interesting document:
RDALE Balanced Literacy
Daily CAFE System
Daily 5
John, I don't care how much of the Internet you search, it is positively insulting for you to disagree with a real, live participant in a Mississippi school system. Especially when what I describe is simple common sense.
What happened was not "putting kids in subgroups" in the sense that we do so today, by race, economics, Etc. But rather by what really matters, which was academic readiness and previous achievement. If you do not do that, there is simply no way to effectively teach a class larger than two or three. Unless you do CAI= class size of one.
And please, please stop blaming the parents for anything and everything. By far the vast majority are doing the best they can because they love their children just like you do. I suspect almost all of them are sending their kids to school with the expectation that they will receive a better education than what they, the parents, are able to provide for whatever reason. So instead of actually providing what was promised, our education "system" pushes their failures right back on the parents. I can't imagine how frustrating and hopeless that must seem. We KNOW that the schools can do better, Laurie's suggestion being one very good approach, so why isn't it being done, right now?
Jerry,
Feel insulted if you wish, but it is pretty clear that they were practicing segregation by classroom.
My daughter loved their puppy when they were young. That did not mean that they were qualified or capable of providing the care or training it needed.
As long as you keep protecting irresponsible, unqualified and/or neglectful Parent(s) from living up to the obligations they accepted when they chose to keep their infant... We will keep disagreeing, and unlucky kids will continue to suffer failure, poverty, abuse, neglect, etc.
"why isn't it being done, right now?"
I have no data to prove if it is being done or not.
Here's our point of disagreement: I am NOT and never have "protect[ing] irresponsible, unqualified and/or neglectful Parents." I have insisted that those people are nearly impossible to find and that we have laws already on the books for those tiny few that are. What I have been insisting upon is that the schools, who are paid for and insist upon being entrusted with every child's education, do so. No excuses. Especially not "demography is destiny" and "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
And the fact that the Mississippi classrooms were "segregated" by race is exactly why the government stepped in and forbid them from doing it, leading to total classroom chaos and a huge drop in what had previously been good academic success for everybody. But even now, Mississippi's "gap" is lower than Minnesota's.
Of course you protect and promote "irresponsible, unqualified and/or neglectful Parents" both actively and passively.
Your resistance to free easy to obtain reliable birth control / sex education is just another example
Pretty much anyone who has children on welfare is irresponsible. If they can not afford the time and money to raise one child, why should they be allowed to bring 2 home?
Your resistance to make the Parent(s) of kids on welfare meet basic requirements of training, performance, etc in exchange for their benefits.
All lead protect or promote unlucky kids continuing to suffer failure, poverty, abuse, neglect, etc.
Yippee... Both the White and Black kids in Mississippi are dumber than MN kids...
That is quite the measure of success you have there...
Some Interesting data - Nation's Report Card
And this one shows gaps for each state
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