It’s not enough for good teachers to teach well, writes Karin Chenoweth on Britannica Blog. The school must be organized to ensure all students learn, even if those with not-so-good teachers.
For generations, teachers have talked at kids and if the kids learned they were considered smart. If they didn’t, they were considered to be the opposite. That was life in school and that was how many teachers were trained to think. A sloppier way to organize schools could hardly be devised.
That could all be changing now. Schools are now being asked to organize themselves in such a way that no child loses out just because his or her teacher is weak. And teachers are being asked to study test score data to see how they need to change their teaching to ensure that all their students learn.
Whenever I’ve found a successful high-poverty/high-minority school, I’ve found a principal who says, “We learned how to use data to improve the way we teach.”
The other day I commented on an article by Karin Chenoweth, and thought it was a pretty good article. Her article today seems a little empty. What does it mean to “organize a school”? That’s not obvious, and we shouldn’t assume there is anything obvious about it. It may be good food for thought, but I don’t remember that they told us anything about it in ed school. I can imagine some ideas that could go under the label, “organizing the school”, but my imaginings might be quite different than yours, or Karin Chenoweth’s. Two thoughts come to mind.
Educators sometimes fall into the trap of assuming that if there is no “program” for some goal, then we do nothing for that goal. For example we may assume that if a school has no program, or committee, assigned to “critical thinking”, then we simply don’t teach critical thinking. I would disagree. As another example, we could say that a family that has no formal “safety program” doesn’t care about safety. That doesn’t make sense. Parents care about safety, but they don’t need a “program”. Similarly to say that a school is not “organized” because the principal cannot produce a binder with the title “Organization of Washington Middle School” makes no sense to me. And it would be equally foolish to say that a school is organized if the principal has such a binder displayed prominently in his office. So I repeat the question, what does it mean to say that a school is organized? The answer is not obvious.
Second thought. Administrators are responsible for “organizing the school”, not teachers. Teachers have to play the hand dealt them, to play the role assigned to them. A teacher who is too concerned with analyzing that role is simply inviting frustration. Therefore, it would seem, administrators are very important. I’m not sure. The other day someone posted something to that effect on another subject, and I felt myself disagreeing, thinking that administrators are necessary, but really have very little to do with teaching and learning. And then I realized they are especially important if they fail in discipline. Adminstrators can’t teach directly, but they are responsible for establishing conditions in which teachers can teach. Is this organization? It’s important, but is it organization? I don’t think the answer is obvious.
And teachers are being asked to study test score data to see how they need to change their teaching to ensure that all their students learn.
What does this mean? In what way can I change my teaching so that the clown with no self-control will understand he needs a thesis if he’s to write to a particular audience? Meanwhile, what about the other 35 students, each with his/her own particular demands? By studying what data will I be able to corral the five habitual disruptors in 5th period and get them to buy into what I’m selling them? Are we talking about linking “data” to Howard Gardner’s spurious MI’s? I hope not. Do I teach to “visual learners” on Monday, “kinaestetic learners” on Tuesday and so forth? Give me one specific example of how one piece of so-called data will enable me to alter my teaching “to ensure that all [my] students learn.” Until then, I’m inclined to take this narrative as a crock of steer droppings.
BB’s comment presents the argument that the only type of student not currently learning are the “habitual disrupters.” This is a sad generalization, and demonstrably false, besides. There’s plenty of nicely behaved kids not learning. Data tell those willing to pay attention how to fix that.
TMAO says, “There’s plenty of nicely behaved kids not learning. Data tell those willing to pay attention how to fix that.” I would have to disagree with this, rather strongly. If data, of any sort, would tell us how to fix it, it would have been fixed long, long ago. Everyday a zillion teachers stare at homework, quizzes, and tests, and try to figure out what’s going on in the student’s mind, and how to teach better. Good teachers pay attention. They always have. But there’s no magic. Learning is hard for many students, and many students have many important influences in their lives that are beyond the control of the school or teacher.
Maybe I’m reading too much into TMAO’s comment, but it again sounds like the “we need a program” mentality, thinking that we’re not looking at data unless we have a program, or a committee, for it.
I like BadaBing’s comment. I think he’s saying what I was trying to say in my first comment. And I think he said it better.
Hi Brian,
I never mentioned programs or committees, or made any allusion to them. I don’t understand where you’re getting that.
While it is important for teachers to “stare at” student work, the article and Joanne’s comments were hitting at something larger and more focused than “star[ing at” homework. Here, we’re talking about using data to inform scheduling, student grouping, course offerings, length of school days, which teachers work with which students, and so on.
Both you and BB successful knocked down some strawmen that only the two of you erected.
In what way can I change my teaching so that the clown with no self-control will understand he needs a thesis if he’s to write to a particular audience? … By studying what data will I be able to corral the five habitual disruptors in 5th period and get them to buy into what I’m selling them?
There is ample evidence that positive reinforcement is more effective for teaching a clown self-control than negative reinforcement.
Go to http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-to-effectively-manage-classroom.html for some more information about how to motivate students with no self-control. Follow the links to the other parts too.
http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-to-effectively-manage-classroom-iv.html
Meanwhile, what about the other 35 students, each with his/her own particular demands?
Okay, let’s take an example. I don’t know what age group you are teaching, so this specific example may be irrelevant to you, but hopefully you can figure out how to apply it.
Let us say that you want to teach your students about triangles. The curriculum you are using only provides examples of black triangles. You discover that on your test 50% of your students misidentified a square as a triangle because the square was black too. Then you discover that if you show your students not just black triangles, but red triangles, and blue triangles, and also if you show them things that are not triangles, like squares, then 99% of your students get the test question right. From then on I would expect you to keep teaching future kids about triangles by showing them a wide range of triangles and also things explicitly labelled as not triangles.
Or, let me try to pick a more relevant example. You appear to be an English teacher – am I right? Say you wish to teach your kids what it means to write for their audience. There are various different means of doing this, for example, you could just tell them they must write for their audience, you could give them examples of writing targeted to the audience and writing completely non-targeted, you could have them write passages that are targeted to the audience that you then mark and hand back, you could have them write passages that are as non-targeted to the audience as possible. Which is the best way to do so? I don’t know. However, you could teach one way, then a week later test the kids and see if they still know what it means to write to their audience. Then repeat. Or you could combine with other teachers to test this method.
If BadaBing is in a situation where nothing works,why should we pay to even try?
Thanks for the specific example, Tracy, and I think your argument has some merit. The problem I have is with administrators and “educators” talking about some vague repository of data that will lead teachers to a sort of epiphany that will, in turn, enable them to reach every unique individual by designing lessons that teach to the varying uniquenesses of said individuals. Bad sentence, I know. Anyway, what I see as lacking in the discussion is the very real variable of intelligence. Our former school psychologist sent me an angry email because I dared suggest that not all kids can be taken to the same level of competency in writing, reading comp, literary analysis and so forth. How would IQ test scores play a role as data that informs a teacher’s methodology? Of course, in today’s egalitarian climate, questions like that draw immediate fire, but I’m just thinking out loud here, so please don’t hurt me too bad.
And thank you, Tracy, for the links. I’ve been reading the interview and think it is very helpful. I’ve also ordered the book mentioned in the interview.
Yeah, BadaBing, I agree. As far as I can tell, education, or at least education done well, is a very complicated matter that fully deserves the word “profession” applied to it. It’s not a simple matter of chucking in some big idea, everything depends on the details of implementation. As Karin Chenoweth says in the linked article, it’s a matter of getting just about everything right.
As for intelligence, I think the schools Joanne Jacob and Karin Chenoweth are talking about are public ones, where they can’t do much about the intelligence of their intake. So instead the schools focus on the kids that they have and seeing that they learn as much as possible. Certainly, if I had a kid with, say, Down’s Syndrome, I would like a school with that focus.