Insert Transformative Practices Here.

Consider this a fact-finding mission.

Here’s some context:  I am new to the district I work in, meaning I just started here in July.  I was hired to come in and supervise three departments, three departments that had not been supervised (in the traditional sense–whatever that is–) before.  Curriculum had been looked at, but a group effort to make it flow from K-12 hadn’t been attempted.

In New Jersey, schools are grouped according to something called a District Factor Group, which is a value consisting of wealth components and educational levels of the residents taken from the most recent census data.  The group we belong to is very close to the highest (on and scale that rates them A-J with A being the lowest, we are an “I”).  The top two socio-economic levels usually comprise most of the top performing schools within the state.  Withing that group, we rank near the bottom in most of the measurables society uses to gauge us.

Are the two items related?  I’m sure there is something to the fact that there hasn’t been an earnest evaluation of what we do in quite a while, and going through such a process is often painful the first time, but it must be done.

I’ve talked to the teachers, specifically in the English Department at the high school, and outlined a plan to change the sequence of the courses offered.  None of them liked it, and, in fact, most were opposed.  That plan is now being debated in public.  It’s equal parts structural/course sequence change and curriculum change.

But what I am finding I really need is more input.  Input from the teachers and students.  Input from the network out here.  How do re-arrange situations in which students don’t view their learning in certain “levels” with any seriousness?

I need models.  I need ways to help kids who don’t like to read and engage in “literary things” find value and meaning in what they do in their academic classes.  I need ways to make it come alive for them.

I also need ways to do this so that teaching these kids in this new way does not drive my teachers insane.

There are models I’ve looked at that I love.  I’ve read Readicide and am mining that for ideas and inspiration.  What else should I read?  Who else should I talk to?  What are you doing that is making this type of difference?

Great Pushback, From a Local Source

This comment appeared in my email inbox the other day, submitted by a teacher I work with in regards to my Attention, Engagement, Learning post from ASCD :

I really liked your “transfer of responsibility” model. But to a degree I disagree with the idea that students speaking/ interacting is a panacea for learning. I remember in my teaching classes we were drilled with the mantra “leanring is social”. But I think that’s just a new myth. I think instruction has to be differentiated. SOME kids are social learners and some are not. I frequently do partner assignments in Russian at the high school, and one of the consistent comments I got back on my survey was “less partner work”. My other class there ( I have two sections) seems to love it. I’ve also seen partner/ group work devolve into BS sessions or one person giving the answers to the other and the other kid not learning a thing.

So: not a panacea, just another tool to use appropriately.

I was blown away that anyone in my district actually reads this, but psyched to have some push-back from a local level where, to me, it matters most.  Here was my quick reply:

Thanks for checking it out; it was a great weekend where I was able to really get into excellent discussions about things that matter.  Here’s my take on your reaction.

Yes, some kids are social learners, some are not.  Some kids draw pictures, some are like me and cannot even begin to attempt that.  What the GRR model advocates is not “all social all the time,” but rather a mix of various types of collaborative and cooperative work.  Some of that will involve talking, some may not.

Plus, when you take a close look at what Kagan believes about the brain and what he believes about how we learn, the structures make a ton of sense.  In the model you gave me for your classes, how do you hold each student responsible for what goes on in the discussion?  If, as you say, it devolves into a BS session, what can be done to deter that?  The structures Kagan created all are built with a combination of group and individual accountability whereby, if done right, there is equal responsibility on the part of all cooperative partners.

From my perspective, we as teachers work very hard.  Can we begin to look at what we do not from the standpoint of teachers, but from the standpoint of learners?  If we did, I think we would agree that there is a lot of responsibility that can be transferred to the learner.  This is not just a tweak here or there I am talking about, but a whole paradigm shift in practice.

And, that was not all.  He came back today with another great insight:

My observations and criticism were directed more toward the PET scan and the concept that “the person doing the talking is the one doing the learning”. For me to buy into that model I would need to see more context for what specific events were occurring during the PET scan. For example, I”m sure that parts of the brain involved in registering the facial expressions and emotional reactions of the person one is speaking to are lighting up in that scan. But does that necessarily mean that that person is “learning” more of a particular content? What if we took two individuals and asked one to write a summary of  Romeo and Juliet and asked the other to retell it? Which brain would light up more? And what needs to be lighting up to demonstrate learning? To be mildly flip: I bet my brain would light up pretty brightly if I was about to be in a car accident. What am I learning (except that I”m screwed …:)

My point simply is this: I need more evidence to buy the notion that the “one doing the talking” is the one who is learning. This may be true for some social learners in some contexts but not necessarily in others (again, returning to what we both agree is the need for differentiating instruction).

I like and accept in principle the GRR model, especially in the broad principal/ thesis of moving the student from dependency to independence. I think that some of the failures I’ve seen of cooperative learning was that it kept students stuck in being dependent on other students for the answer/ learning, rather than using it as a means to wean them to a level where they can demonstrate/ perform a skill independently. So I think the concept if I do it-we do it-you (plural) do it-you (singular) do it is a good one. (Although not all kids will need to do the you plural one all the time in all situations…

These are the kinds of discussions that we should be having, and whether or not they are in person, at this point, I don’t care.  Eventually I would love that, but we have to start somewhere.

What do you think?

Image Credit: “Cheech Wizard Anarcho-Syndicalist – Support Your Local Revolution” from Flickr

Pushed to Joy

Two articles came across my bow today, one right after the other, and each pushed my thinking a little farther down a path.

Will writes today about an article he read in BoingBoing by Cory Doctorow rehashing Jon Holt’s How Children Learn.  While I’ve not read Doctorow or Holt, Will pulled a quote from Doctorow (as he was discussing Holt’s title) that matched squarely to my experience sitting in for Erica Hartman tonight at Back to School Night:

Most resonant for me was his description of kids’ learning unfolding from the natural passionate obsessions that overtake them.

As an administrator now, I am asked to observe teachers in their practice and give them feedback on specific areas.  Like students have preferences, there are some teachers we prefer to observe because of the mindset we leave with–we are reaffirmed, we’ve learned, and we can spread that knowledge to others.  Those teachers engage and push, and in many ways provide students with access to a very raw emotion, one we rarely associate with school these days, unfortunately: joy.

Immediately below Will’s post in my aggregator was one by Doug Johnson entitled Joy in the Classroom.  Aptly titled, Doug also pulls from a text, that of John Dewey:

What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win the ability to read and write, if in the process the individual lose his own soul? – John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1938

Several parents came up to me tonight and said very clearly: “this is not what I remember about school,” after watching Erica‘s remote presentation about our Connections class.  And I took great comfort in that.  Others remarked that they were so glad that their children were getting the opportunity to push their thinking, and that their son/daughter couldn’t wait for this class because they never know where they will end up by the end of the period.  To me that means they are digging it.   And to Paul C who commented on Doug’s post, that joy is synonymous with engagement:

I wouldn’t say that all learning is necessarily joyful. Personally if I am engaged in the topic at hand, time flies and I am consumed by my pursuits…

Equip students with the dynamic learning skills necessary to pursue life long quests.

They’ll forget the content but remember the fire.

Doug also posted Steven Wolk’s list of 10 essentials to bring joy into school experiences:

Find the Pleasure in Learning

Give Students Choice

Let Students Create Things

Show Off Student Work

Take Time to Tinker

Make School Spaces Inviting

Get Outside

Read Good Books

Offer More Gym and Arts Classes

Transform Assessment

After reading those posts, I immediately did two things: first, I followed Doug’s link to his article entitled Designing Research Projects Students Love, and secondly wrote and sent an email to two teachers whose classrooms I have spent some time in this week who completely impressed me with their ability to push their students to joy through whatever means necessary.

They’ll remember the fire. That works for me.