Category Archives: Teaching and Education Reform

Small Group Cooperative Learning

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Too many teachers throw students into small groups and expect meaningful learning to ensue.

They don’t discuss or teach small group interpersonal skills. They may not think through how best to group students of different interests and abilities. They may not clearly communicate or model their expectations. And they may not check to see that the students truly understand what to do before telling them to begin working.

So instead of getting right to work, students end up talking about what they think they’re supposed to do. And because the expectations and steps aren’t posted anywhere, the teach frantically runs from group to group answering clarifying questions. One or two of the students do the bulk of the group work while the others passively coast.

Then the teach doesn’t make time to challenge students to reflect on and identify what they did and didn’t do well within their small groups. Too many teachers wrongly assume that small group cooperative learning skills are intuitive; consequently, they don’t have to teach them. As a result, most groups are dysfunctional, the sum rarely if ever equals more than the individual parts, and students develop negative associations with small group cooperative learning.

They end up carrying around invisible backpacks filled with negative group experiences. “Not group work again.” Often in high schools, it’s easy to detect a pervading sense of small group doom and gloom which teachers often mistakenly chalk up to “laziness” or “immaturity”.

Teachers aren’t alone. Coaches sometimes refer to team chemistry, but rarely if ever teach how to be a good teammate. Again, they assume the requisite interpersonal skills—listening, encouraging, and problem solving for example are built-in, even though there’s ample evidence they’re not. Orchestra conductors, youth pastors, drama teachers, employers, and parents often fail to teach young people how to prepare for and contribute more positively to their inside and outside of school small groups.

To the detriment of meaningful learning, we focus on work products at the expense of work processes.

The Teacher Appreciation Deficit

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Thursday night, as I settled into my seat at Olympia High School’s end-of-the-year orchestra concert, my thoughts drifted back to earlier in the day when my thirty-four Masters Teaching Certification candidates discussed whether, as year-long interns, they felt sufficiently appreciated.

No surprise that most of them did not. Instead of partnering with them, they lamented that too many of their students’ parents ceded seemingly total responsibility for their  children’s education. I suggested that tough economic times seem to be bringing out the worse in an increasing number of people who seemingly view teachers—with their relative job security, solid health care benefits and retirement plans, and shorter than average work year—with antipathy and derision.

My doctoral dissertation was the story of a Global Studies high school in Southern California. Before putting pen to paper, I sat in on four classrooms for a few months. One dark fall morning, while I was interviewing one of the Global Studies teachers whose classroom I studied, he stopped me cold and said, “You’re the first person in twenty-three years who truly understands what I do.”

Most teachers do exceptionally good work in near total obscurity. Often, their administrators and colleagues don’t even have a feel for what they accomplish on a daily basis, let alone students’ parents or the public more generally. Ignorance breeds contempt.

Coaches, theater educators, and music educators are exceptions to the rule because their students sporadically perform in public. Typically, afterwards, the public praises their performances and applauds, sometimes as in the case of the Olympia High School end-of-the-year orchestra concert, lustily.

Absent audio tracks from their concert, there’s no way I can convey the brilliance of Olympia High’s orchestra program. It probably helps that I’m not a connoisseur of classical music, but at every concert I marvel anew at the excellence. Excellence that rests on parents like the GalPal who decided early on that our daughters were going to have every opportunity to excel at the violin, a network of outstanding private instructors, and Chip Freakin’ Schooler, the best orchestra teacher and conductor in at least this galaxy.

Of course privilege comes into play, but what better use of financial resources than artistic excellence? In fact, increasingly I wonder if beautiful music, dance, literature, design, painting, photography and related art forms are all that matter. Maybe we have it exactly backwards, cutting arts education in the interest of economic utilitarianism and consumerism.

CFS deserves his own post, but for now, suffice to say he embodies a critical ingredient to reforming education and improving teaching—off the charts subject matter expertise. A couple of tweaks to his life journey and I suspect he’d be conducting a major U.S. symphony right now.

Instead, he’s working tirelessly with fourth and fifth graders and middle schoolers at several different schools preparing them for the high school orchestras. His work ethic rivals his musicality, so much so it takes most of the summer at his family’s Lake Cour d’ Alene cabin to decompress.

I feel deeply indebted to CFS for the educational experience he’s provided Fifteen and Eighteen. At the end of the concert, each senior gave him a bag of chips, then took turns reading a touching poem to him, then gave him flowers, then new rosin rags, then a special tuning fork set to 2011 megahertz. Craziness, teenagers being touching.

CFS balanced appreciation for his students’ affection with selfless and pragmatic attention to wrapping up the concert. Pride in the students’ accomplishments, without the personal ego one might expect.

It’s the end of the school year. Tell a Chip Schooler in your community why you appreciate them.

Misunderestimating My Students

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Been out-of-sorts at work lately. The technical term is “professional funk” or PF. I’m disillusioned with the direction K-12 and teacher education are going and I feel disconnected from too many of my colleagues. As a result, I’m putting more time and energy in my non-work life.

This semester even my teaching seemed a bit off kilter. Classes are organic, constantly shifting entities. I’ve learned lot about teaching over the decades, things that increase the odds of me having success, but when students know and like one another and decide to engage with the content, it’s easy to create positive momentum, and like an orchestra conductor, direct a successful class. By “success” I mean students learn challenging content and skills they value while enjoying the process.

Similarly, when students don’t know one another and go through the motions, it can be a semester-long uphill battle to create positive momentum and an enjoyable, successful class. This semester my first year writing seminar was of the uphill variety. Even mid-semester, when I’d arrive right before class, everyone often sat waiting in complete silence. Class discussions were lopsided, with the same half of the class doing all of the work. Their initial writing assignments revealed a few strong writers and more than normal weak ones.

I didn’t dwell on my PF and kept on keeping on. It took longer than normal to create rapport and I never felt that we truly clicked. Did they like my amazingly clever short stories about my first year college daughter like the time her high school science teacher accidentally lit her dress on fire? Was that muted chuckle out of politeness? To make matters worse, a few of them couldn’t believe the marks I gave them on their first papers and obsessed about grades all semester.

All in all, I didn’t feel too successful especially when late in the semester one of the more energetic students said “I have to talk to you after class.” Modern College Student texts, she doesn’t talk, especially face-to-face with her professor, so I looked forward to learning what was on her mind. “You talked too much during class today. I didn’t feel listened to. It’s like you said at the beginning of the semester, good discussions require active listening otherwise some people give up. Momentary silence is okay.”

“Thanks for taking the initiative to call me on that,” I replied. “I appreciate it and I apologize. I’ll try to do better in the discussion or two we have left.” Simultaneously, I thought, “Why don’t you just take this letter opener and jam it into my heart and put me out my misery.” I pride myself on being a very good discussion leader, and on this day, I couldn’t even hang my hat on that.

Normally, teaching is the best antidote for PF. Interacting with students in the classroom cancels out mind numbing faculty meetings, difficult to work with colleagues, and university politics, but this semester I had a particularly resistant strain.

Then I read my writing students final essays.

Suffice to say, to borrow from W, I “misunderestimated” them. They found the course both interesting and helpful.

Here are two examples in their own words, one from the only student courageous enough to get up in my grill and critique my teaching in person.

• An excellent result of this course is that I enjoy writing again. When I was in elementary school, there was nothing I enjoyed more than composing. By the time I was in high school essays had become a chore. Luckily, this course has altered that attitude. Maybe it is a product of the confidence or maybe it’s because I enjoy the course theme, but I enjoy writing again. Not only have I learned about education from this course, I have learned about myself and I now know that I am capable of accomplishing more than I would have ever imagined.

     • Beginning the semester, I wasn’t convinced that my voice rang through my writing. I was effective, but not creative. In hindsight, I believe this was due to a lack of confidence in my own ideas. I really related to Frank McCourt, author of Teacher Man, his autobiography of his teaching career in New York City. While Frank was slowly developing confidence in the classroom, I was becoming sure in my own convictions, abilities, and ideas. This growth may not be evident to my professor or classmates in my writing, but I believe it was evident in our class discussions. I never feared speaking initially, but rather had trouble defending my ideas when challenged. I remember during one of our first discussions on Educating Esmé, the class was disputing Esmé’s obligation to respect authority. I was raised to believe that respect for authority is implicit, but many students disagreed with my point of view. I took their criticism personally and ceased defending myself. Over the last fifteen weeks, I have become more confident expressing and supporting my opinions. Now, I am really thankful for a classroom of diverse, opinionated students who tested my beliefs. This external confrontation led to an internal cultivation of character and confidence. This new found voice may not yet be obvious in my writing, but I hope to continue to nurture it. 

I’m glad I misunderestimated how the class went.

Their papers were a moving reminder of how fortunate I am to have a job that affords me the opportunity to make a positive difference in young people’s lives.

The Inevitability of Interpersonal Conflict

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One of the most depressing insights in Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower is that 9/11 would in all likelihood been avoided if key figures in the upper reaches of the FBI and CIA had respected one another more, communicated better, and in the end, just plain got along. Instead, the people entrusted with our security despised one another, purposely withheld information from one another, and didn’t do as good a job as they could and should have.

Recently a friend told me his pastor and the church’s worship leader don’t get along at all, to the point that it’s become a distraction for others in the church.

While reading on the couch the other day, a teenager approached me and said, “Can you go downstairs and read so I can watch t.v.?” “In ten minutes.” “Why?! Why can’t you just read downstairs now?!” Mind swirls, pulse doubles, beads of sweat form on brow, firey mini-lecture bubbles over. Teenager angrily retreats to bedroom. Once my pulse returns to near normal, I pursue my prey. She’s maimed and I’m going in for the kill. If she thought my original response was tough-minded, she’s about to be served a super-sized version of the same.

While approaching the bedroom door I worry it’s not going to go well. This particular teen, who will remain anonymous, is a digger-inner. Whenever there’s a conflict, instead of taking some responsiblity for it, she almost always defends herself.  So when mid-lecture, she quietly said, “I’m sorry,” she stopped me dead in my tracks.

Her apology immediately defused everything. I thanked her and later praised her maturity in front of her mother. It was a teachable moment, the lesson being, conflict is inevitable. Nobody is ever immune from it. Maybe “normal” or “natural” are even better words. Our challenge is to get more comfortable with it. And to figure out how we sometimes escalate it and other times defuse it.

What Arne Duncan Really Meant

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An Open Letter From Arne Duncan to America’s Teachers

By Arne Duncan

What Arne really meant.

I have worked in education (Never taught in a public school a day in my life. With the low pay, large classes, and top-down management, I’d never be caught teaching.) for much of my life. I have met with thousands of teachers in great schools and struggling schools, in big cities and small towns, and I have a deep and genuine appreciation (repeat platitudes enough, some teachers may begin to believe them) for the work you do. I know that most teachers did not enter the profession for the money. You became teachers to make a difference in the lives of children, and for the hard work you do each day, you deserve to be respected, valued, and supported (which is why I’m probably not the best guy for the job)

I consider teaching an honorable and important profession, and it is my goal to see that you are treated with the dignity we award to other professionals in society. In too many communities, the profession has been devalued. Many of the teachers I have met object to the imposition of curriculum that reduces teaching to little more than a paint-by-numbers exercise. I agree. (I’m a a politician not an educator so I have to tell you want you want to hear, in actuality though, I prefer business leaders’ ideas to tie your compensation to your students’ test scores on standardized reading and math exams.) 

Inside your classroom, you exercise a high degree of autonomy. You decide when to slow down to make sure all of your students fully understand a concept, or when a different instructional strategy is needed to meet the needs of a few who are struggling to keep up. You build relationships with students from a variety of backgrounds and with a diverse array of needs, and you find ways to motivate and engage them (Here’s hoping you aren’t smart enough to detect the irony in me having to argue you have a high degree of autonomy. Obviously, if you felt greater trust, I wouldn’t have had to include this paragraph at all.) I appreciate the challenge and skill involved in the work you do and applaud those (ten percent) of you who have dedicated your lives to teaching.

You have told me you believe that the No Child Left Behind Act has prompted some schools—especially low-performing ones—to teach to the test, rather than focus on the educational needs of students. Because of the pressure to boost test scores, NCLB has narrowed the curriculum, and important subjects like history, science, the arts, foreign languages, and physical education have been de-emphasized (which, apart from science, is fine by me since those subjects don’t impact our economic competiveness). And you are frustrated when teachers alone are blamed for educational failures that have roots in broken families, unsafe communities, misguided reforms, and underfunded schools systems. You rightfully believe that responsibility for educational quality should be shared by administrators, community, parents, and even students themselves (But since the Education Department can’t boss administrators, communities, parents, and students around as easily as you, deal with the scapegoating.).

The teachers I have met are not afraid of hard work, and few jobs today are harder (I’m guessing). Moreover, it’s gotten harder in recent years; the challenges kids bring into the classroom are greater and the expectations are higher. Not too long ago, it was acceptable for schools to have high dropout rates, and not all kids were expected to be proficient in every subject. In today’s economy, there is no acceptable dropout rate, and we rightly expect all children—English-language learners, students with disabilities, and children of poverty—to learn and succeed (even if our short-term “Race to the Top” funds only impact a tiny fraction of those students’ classrooms).

You and I are here to help America’s children (Well, I’m here to strengthen my resume, play pickup ball with O, and leverage this title into serious money going forward, but Harvard taught me you have to include this kind of sentence in a “letter of appreciation”.). We understand that the surest way to do that is to make sure that the 3.2 million teachers in America’s classrooms are the very best they can be. The quality of our education system can only be as good as the quality of our teaching force (my “legacy” insight).

So I want to work with you (well not directly, and after reading the comments, maybe not even indirectly) to change and improve federal law, to invest in teachers and strengthen the teaching profession. Together with you (well, with The Gates Foundation and the 3.2 million of you in mind), I want to develop a system of evaluation that draws on meaningful observations and input from your peers, as well as a sophisticated assessment that measures individual student growth, creativity, and critical thinking. States, with the help of teachers (fortunately, it’s always the state education officials in charge, God help us if it was “Teachers, with the help of their states”) , are now developing better assessments so you will have useful information to guide instruction and show the positive impact you are having on our children (or the negative impact many of you are having on your students).

Working together, we can transform teaching from the factory model designed over a century ago to one built for the information age (Catching my stride now! Almost like I’m channeling 2008 O.). We can build an accountability system based on data we trust (even if my department, your state education office, and the business community don’t trust you) and a standard that is honest—one that recognizes and rewards great teaching, gives new or struggling teachers the support they need to succeed, and deals fairly, efficiently, and compassionately (that’s gotta make union leaders feel better) with teachers who are simply not up to the job. With your input and leadership, we can restore the status of the teaching profession so more (or some) of America’s top college students choose to teach because no other job is more important or more fulfilling (so I’m told).

In the next decade, half of America’s teachers are likely to retire (some earlier than they had planned in part because of my department’s policies). What we do to recruit, train, and retain our new teachers will shape public education in this country for a generation. At the same time, how we recognize, honor, and show respect for our experienced educators will reaffirm teaching as a profession of nation builders and social leaders (crescendo time) dedicated to our highest ideals. As that work proceeds, I want you to know that I hear you, I value you, and I respect you (even if my actions suggest otherwise).

It Gets Better Project

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Timely, important, moving, potentially life saving website, book, videos and more based on a pledge—Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. I pledge to spread this message to my friends, family and neighbors. I’ll speak up against hate and intolerance whenever I see it, at school and at work. I’ll provide hope for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and other bullied teens by letting them know that “It Gets Better.”

And although the week is only half-over, I’m going out on the limb and anointing this semi-related (connect the dots yourself) post by Alex Tabarrok, Do Cellphones Cause Brain Damage? POW-status (Post of the Week).

And this Jerry Seinfeld Royal Wedding gem the QOW (Quote of the Week).

“You know, it’s dress-up. It’s a classic English thing of let’s play dress-up. Let’s pretend that these are special people. OK, we’ll all pretend that—that’s what theater is. That’s why the British have the greatest theater in the world. They love to dress upand they love to play pretend. And that’s what the royal family is—it’s a huge game of pretend. These aren’t special people—it’s fake outfits, fake phony hats and gowns.”

And this Sudhir Venkatesh’s Slate magazine semi-related piece (again, connect the dots yourself), “What Is the Matter with Sociology?” the BESS award—Best Essay on the State of Sociology of the week.

And at the risk of starting a ROW, I anoint you Reader of the Week.

Is Online Learning A Good or Bad Thing?

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I know you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, but is the steadily increasing popularity of on-line learning a good or bad thing?

Depends. If all one wants students to do is recall mostly factual information on mostly objective exams, online learning makes a lot more sense than everyone meeting at brick and mortar locations at the same time.

But if it’s important that students learn to think critically, analyze content, and show empathy for others or develop greater self-understanding, a social conscience and interpersonal skills, it’s problematic because those skills tend to require “thinking out loud” side-by-side, asking questions, debating case studies, listening, problem-solving, and in the end, constructing knowledge together.

Then again, it’s probably just a matter of time until on-line instructional software incorporates group video conferencing and other related features that will make all of those more interpersonal aims equally achievable on-line.

Until then I confess to getting more than a little queazy when applicants to the Masters teaching certificate program I coordinate inform me they attended on-line universities. “Is that going to be a problem?” Inner voice, “Hell yeah!” Apart from counseling and diplomacy, I can’t think of any more intensely interpersonal profession than teaching.

I want prospective teachers to be subject-matter experts—which means knowing the elementary curriculum AND eight year olds inside and out or 9th grade physical science AND adolescents. I also know that their success as teachers will hinge as much or more on their ability to get along with students’ families and their fellow teachers and administrators more than their undergraduate grades or teaching licensure test scores. When it comes to adults getting along with one another, every school is dysfunctional, just in different ways and in different degrees.

Isn’t most contemporary work similarly interpersonal? And shouldn’t education be about citizenship as much as it is employment? And doesn’t effective citizenship require well developed interpersonal skills?

Maybe the better, more specific question is what distinguishes good online programs from bad ones? My guess is the best online programs are hybrids that require students to combine their online learning with weekly or monthly face-to-face teaching and learning experiences on brick and mortar campuses.

Teach Friendship

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Most friendships just evolve. Our closest friends typically end up being people with whom we share a common activity or interest. In terms of living emotionally healthy, constructive, fulfilling lives, nothing matters much more than who we become friends with and whether they inspire us to be better or worse people than we would be without them.

Because we aren’t as intentional as we might be about our friendships, we assume the young people we have responsibility for will just “find their way”. Experience is a great teacher, but parents, teachers, coaches, youth pastors, and other adults that regularly work with young people should explicitly teach friendship. Choosing friends that inspire is a learned skill. Just hope that those types of friendships naturally evolve at your children’s and your own risk.

Those were my thoughts while reading a nice one-pager by KJ Fields titled “How to spot an unhealthy relationship” in Group Health’s Spring 2011 NWHealth magazine. Thanks to Fields for providing a tool for teaching friendship. These are signs that a relationship may be bad for you:

  • You don’t feel respected or listened to.
  • The other person’s opinion is always the one that matters most.
  • Your feelings are belittled.
  • You act differently around this person, fearing disapproval or anger.
  • You feel worried and tense about the relationship, rather than enjoying it.
  • You’re always the one to make the effort or compromise.
  • Your values and beliefs are far apart.
  • The other person is overly critical of you, and frequently insults you.
  • You find yourself lying to hide information from the other person.

That’s a nice conceptual framework for dinner table, school, or youth group conversations with adolescents especially about peer relations in general and dating relationships more specifically.

The Public School Budget Crisis and the Dilemma of Professional Development

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From the Tacoma News Tribune—During the course of a school year, the cost to offer professional development adds up to a tidy sum, which is getting harder for school officials to ignore as they comb their budgets for savings.

Fork in the public school budget road. Given budget shortfalls in the tens of millions, the question for the Tacoma School District, and nearly every other one, is how to prioritize among competing trade-offs including: 1) continuing professional development including the mentoring of beginning teachers; 2) retaining more teachers and thereby maintaining smaller class sizes; 3) consolidating (meaning closing some) schools; or 4) reducing pay. Put differently, the District can’t afford to maintain the same professional development program for the same number of teachers in the same number of schools at the same level of pay.

I’m here to help.

Dear Superintendent Jarvis,

While it’s not obvious, as the coordinator of my university’s Masters Teaching Certification program, I’m on the front lines of this dilemma. Currently I’m reading applications, interviewing prospective candidates, and deciding (with the help of some colleagues) who gets the chance to earn a teaching license and who doesn’t. Ours is an above average program, but we need more applicants with even stronger academic backgrounds to choose from. As you’re well aware, legions of fifty and sixty-something boomer teachers are nearing retirement.

In short order, the profession is going to need an infusion of smart, dedicated, caring teachers. The medium and long-term health of your schools depends upon my university attracting deeper and stronger pools of applicants.

While admittedly difficult, I implore you to take the medium to long view by continually asking what priorities are most likely to attract more highly capable college graduates into the profession. The “least worst” outcome is to reduce professional development and consolidate some schools. On average, K-12 teachers make 40% less than their college graduate peers.

I suspect that for every percentage of teachers’ pay you cut and for every student you add to their average classrooms, we lose strong prospective candidates to the business world and other graduate programs. Chip away at compensation and increase teachers’ work loads through larger classes and our pool of applicants will shrink and weaken. The future quality of teaching in your schools hinges on preserving pay and favorable work conditions.

Professional development excellence does not requiring flying in a math expert for two days for $5k. Doing so suggests there isn’t a single teacher within the district who has specialized math expertise that will benefit others. Paying a charismatic professional speaker for a few inspiring talks is easier than changing the work culture, but it creates cynicism because of the utter lack of follow through. If we’re honest with ourselves, we know the medium and long-term benefits of distant experts will always be negligible.

Instead, think bottom-up and assign more responsibility to your teacher-leaders for professional development. Ask them to survey their colleagues and then plan more meaningful discussion-rich sessions around the issues they’ve identified as most important.

If you carefully explain how consolidating schools is the “least worst” outcome most people will eventually come around. People are understandably upset that their property values have plummeted while their property taxes have stayed the same or increased. No one ever likes to see their neighborhood school close, but they’ll be more understanding if you help them connect the dots between school closings, greater economic efficiency, and more manageable property taxes down the road.

Yours Truly,

Ron

Exploration and Play

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Slate e-zine article of note, “Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School“. Subtitle—New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.

Add turning preschool into pre-pre-first grade to the list of “fork in the woods” ripple effects.

The article begs several questions in addition to the primary rhetorical one—In the interest of wide-ranging more natural learning, and greater creativity, should preschoolers be given more opportunities for exploration and play?

Questions such as—In the interest of wide-ranging more natural learning, and greater creativity, should kindergartners be given more opportunities for exploration and play?

And in the interest of wide-ranging more natural learning, and greater creativity, should elementary, middle, and high school students be given more opportunities for exploration and play?

For extra credit, here’s an interesting, related, two-part book review essay.