I read a couple of articles this morning, one from
Ed.magazine, the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the
other from NPR. The central topics had to do with how to go about improving
teaching in our schools. The Ed.magazine article focused on improving the quality of
walk-throughs (visits to classrooms by supervisory people) by improving the
definition of what they are looking for as they observe. The article from NPR
focused on the quality of teaching college programs. Here is an excerpt from that article entitled What Should Go Into A Teaching Degree? by Claudio
Sanchez:
“Christenbury
[professor at VA Commonwealth U] knows all too well that some education
professors are clueless about kids and just about everything else that happens
in classrooms these days. She once taught at a university in another state
where students were baffled that some of their professors had never set foot in
a school.
It's that disconnect that makes Arthur Levine, former
president of Teachers College at Columbia University, want to blow up some
colleges of education and start over. "Education schools have, in many
cases, become irrelevant and often of very low quality," Levine says. Levine
has spent the past five years studying what he calls the "crisis" in
the preparation of classroom teachers.
"The curriculum at schools of education has little to
do with practice, what goes on in schools," says Levine. "There's a
gap that's a mile wide. Senior professors don't participate in schools. There
are universities around this country that place their students for
student-teaching in failing schools with failing teachers. That's a major
problem."
Camille Zombro, president of San Diego's teachers union,
says she's surveyed teachers and found that it doesn't matter how good their
training was. Many are still underprepared and overwhelmed. "I was stunned
by the amount of paper-pushing, mind-numbing, meeting someone else's
requirements," Zombro says. "That's what's pushing people out the
door. It's not the kids — it's the frustration. Fifty percent of teachers are
turning over within the first five years. I mean, yikes!"
Trying to make it better
We are all trying to
make education better for our children. Funds are allocated for various special
needs, new programs are launched, new approaches to teaching mandated and
scripted for us, new textbooks to replace the ones that were the newest and
best just two years ago, more and more paperwork and meetings required of
teachers, SO much testing, so much required “planning” written and displayed
for the frequent walk-throughs, and the list goes on and on. Announcements come
on the classroom TV, intercoms buzz with questions from the office, special needs
personnel tap on the door with questions, children are pulled out mid-lesson
for sessions with other staff members…. Truly, when I taught in the classroom it
was exceedingly difficult to have the presence of mind to do much more than get
through the day.
Considering how interrupted my days became and how full of
extraneous demands from above that were supposed to raise our failing school
out of the ditch it had fallen into, the truth is that the “good stuff” with my
children happened in small handfuls of minutes squeezed in here and there. I
have had occasion to look back and really scrutinize all that went on, to
honestly pinpoint exactly what helped my children learn.
Where should our focus be?
The critical question here is: “How are we going to
determine where the problem lies?” In my opinion, the problem of poor education
in our country is never going to get fixed no matter how much money is thrown
at it, no matter how many new programs are initiated – unless we first stop to
figure out exactly and in precise detail where the problem really lies. Where
are we really failing? If we don’t identify this exact spot, nothing will
improve.
In my opinion, the exact spot for focus was hinted at in the
first paragraph I quoted above. “…some education professors are clueless about
kids…” The article from Harvard also hinted at where focus should be but I had
to really read between the lines. They were saying that supervisors are not in
agreement about what they are looking for. Many focus on the performance of the
teacher. They are warm but not hot; they have not hit the spot right on.
It is my belief, and the belief that fuels us at Child1st
Publications, that the very specific target we should focus on is the child. If
we do not look at the child first, we will not have the wisdom to know how to
remedy education in America.
What is in a look?
There was a specific time in my life I can point to when my
attention turned to the child and I see that time as pivotal in my life. I was
sitting on the floor with some preschoolers and it suddenly struck me. Why are
these particular children having trouble remembering what we are “learning?” I
intuited that they were bright children, smart, capable, confident – but they
were not learning.
From that moment on, everything I did, read, wrote,
observed, and studied was motivated by my need to answer that question. I
became a passionate observer of children and the more I tried to get inside
their heads, the more clearly I could see what was working, what was NOT
working, and what in my teaching was so much unnecessary clutter. Like any
other skill we develop, the more we practice, the better we get at it. And so
it was. Because I was convinced that children CAN learn and that even failing
kids are smart, the onus passed from the failing kids to rest squarely on ME as
their teacher. I realized that if any one of my kids failed, it was on me to
find something that would jive with their brains.
It was not quick
The process of
studying children was not quick. It was very long, laborious, intensive, but also
thrilling,
amazing, rewarding beyond belief, and life changing. It all comes
down to what we focus on. PhD’s all too often spend their time exchanging
brilliant deductions and studies within their rarified world. Studies are
conducted, articles written, new initiatives launched. Papers are published,
books written, and you know what? Kids are still failing. Nothing is getting
better! Dare I suggest that maybe the focus is misplaced?
In my experience, my own best learning happened on the floor
at eye level with kids I viewed as the fount of all my information. Instead of
asking my profs all the questions, I asked the kids most of my questions. “How
did you remember that?” was one of the most frequent questions I asked as I was
learning. If I tried a little strategy with a child, I would ask him, “Did this
help you understand?” My grades were assigned by the kids themselves in that
when I saw the lights go on, I gave myself an A. I followed their lead. I did
what worked for them, and stopped doing what seemed to yield little or no
benefit.
Raising the bar
The most exciting
outcome of these years spent with my eyes three feet off the ground is that I
have seen scores of children go from failing to way above grade level
expectation. That is what happens when we get it right. When we teach in a way
that we have learned from our kids, miracles happen. Rather than cutting the
spelling list in half for failing kids, teach spelling a new way and increase
the list by 50%. Then raise the expectation to 100% accuracy. Does this sound
outrageous? It truly is not. In my little Title 1 room, I saw upwards of 70
kids every week, 2-3 times a week, grades K through 7. This approach worked
across the board. Reading scores soared.
Best of all is that the cure is not rocket science. The
remedy does not lie in intricate, carefully scripted new programs. As a teacher
in schools, I became incredibly stressed each time administration announced a
new program we had to train for. It seemed so sad to me that we had yet another
program to spend time learning. I just wanted someone to say to the staff,
“Take the time to study your children first.”
More information is available at www.child-1st.com.
