Set A: The author argues that students in many schools today excel by memorizing content, replicating low-level procedures, writing formulaically, and following instructions — a winning formula to make the Honor Roll, but a focus that diminishes life prospects in a world of innovation. What do you think? How would these students do at your school? In what ways do you think RCISD is preparing students for their future?
Set B: During a typical school week, how much agency do your students have? How much agency do you feel the teachers in your school have each week? What are small steps your school could take to afford students and teachers more agency?
I think the author is correct in that schools would benefit from making a big change towards problem-solving. That being said, what I didn’t see in the 1st two chapters was anything that required specific skill-building requirements, such as language acquisition (correct grammar skills) or basic math skills. Those are things that must be taught in civilization, along with the other important skills of collaboration and problem-solving. In the “real” world, we do have jobs that require innovation and problem solving and teamwork. But we also have jobs where students need to be able to do simple math calculations in their heads or write a legible letter using correct grammar. Additionally, I don’t know that logistically we can achieve the Utopia that the author would like to see schools reflect, due to the sheer number of students we have. I won’t go into population control, other than to say that our issues aren’t going to get any easier with more students added into the mix, especially when so many bring personal challenges with them to school (I’m mainly referring to an unsupportive family structure at home). Do I think that everyone should be able to write a perfect bibliography? Probably not, but they should be able to diagram a sentence to understand our language, the way by which we communicate. And do I think that every student needs to be able to rattle off all the chemistry formulas? No, but they do need to understand the many scientific processes that affect our world. Students don’t really need to be able to memorize every president, but they should understand the history of our country, as well as our world. There is a LOT of information that I believe we should learn throughout our lives. Some of it includes things that interest us, and some of it includes things we will use in life, including our job. And yes, some of it includes things that may not be interesting or that we may not directly use later on, but are building blocks and/or information we should just know (like the constitution). Life isn’t always interesting, and some of the jobs we MUST do on a daily basis are tedious, like taking roll or washing the dishes at home, etc. Making school into a place that is continually stimulating ALL the time isn’t really reflective of real-life, whether at home, in relationships, or at work. We must find a good balance.
Wendy, you stole my thunder with your last statement! That’s exactly what I was going to say. It requires a balance!
Thanks Jill 🙂
Melissa, I love all your ideas! I think you hit on the biggest obstacle in your first set…TIME! Teachers think that they don’t have time to do the useful things. BUT I would submit that a) it is worth the time b) when we came to teaching it was to do these very things, c) this way allows for the flexibility to grade qualitatively as we go (eliminating a lot of “grading” time) and d) the more we follow the mindset of doing these things, the easier it gets and the faster we become at it.
I love your idea of looking at English TEKS through different lenses. I feel like you could leverage the new Bulb platform to do this within your classes. Seems like an exciting experiment!
I’m answering Set A: I do feel that in the typical classroom, both teachers and students are focusing on the grades and the skills needed for standardized testing. I feel that the author in these two chapters spends a great deal of time pointing out how “some schools” and “some teachers” are creating engaging lessons for the students. However, I did wonder if these teachers were being held accountable for state tested scores and/or having covered the skills needed for the next level of study. I do agree that learning will occur when students are engaged but I feel most of the changes the author suggests occur need to come from the top down (at the state level).
I believe that if we wait for changes to come from the top (state), we are never going to adequately service our students. I do not believe that accountability and doing these things are mutually exclusive, though! Yes, your students need to be prepared for whatever test is being administrated (STAAR, AP, EOC, CLEP, SAT, ACT, etc). But it is up to you to decide how to make that happen. Not every district is as blessed as we are to be allowed to try new things, I get that. But here, I know that if you have a well thought-out plan to successfully get to the desired end result, you have the agency to be able to do that. We have a scope and sequence with testing windows, etc. But if you have a great idea that will transform your kids’ learning, you can communicate with your administrator and come up with a way to make it happen! Be brave!
Chapter 1, Set A: I agree with the author. We do ask students to work in a manner that focuses on the end goal – their grade. Ideally, the end goal is learning, asking questions, creating curiosity, and finding an authentic reason to read. After teaching one year in the high school setting, I feel that students are asked to complete tasks that do not have meaning to them. Not only do the tasks sometimes lack meaning, they are not connected to other tasks or themes within the course. Sometimes it feels as though we are giving students an assignment that will fill time and a grade column. While it is a struggle to find academic tasks – especially reading tasks – that connect with students, I think it is a worthy goal. It helps to ask students their opinions about what they read instead of questions that have “an answer.” They do not lack in opinions! It takes time to grade short answer responses or essays that allow students to express their opinions. It takes time and a lot of energy to guide a class discussion that allows students to express opinions. It takes time to come up with plans that differentiate. I think these are the areas that we need to focus on in this particular subject. No matter which campus or grade level, I find that RCISD gives teachers a great amount of ownership and flexibility in how they teach and guide students. At RCHS, there are some great teachers that allow students to own their learning. They encourage students to offer their opinions and guide their own learning as they read literature. The leadership, at the campus level and at the department level, clearly want what is best for students. I believe this is what will help prepare students for an innovative world ahead. Having leaders that foster innovation and change allows teachers to mirror those attitudes in their lessons, the end goal being that students are innovative and open to change. I feel that the leadership on this campus expects us to look at lessons and courses and find things that don’t work. They expect us to use those experiences to grow.
Set B: I feel that I could absolutely do a better job of giving my students more ownership in their learning. There were some opportunities to do so this year. When being flexible and allowing students to drive their own learning, there is some room for less than honest students to avoid completing worthwhile tasks or authentic learning. Our principal pointed out that the percentage of students not working or using this freedom to work the system is probably far less than the percentage of students checked out during a “sit and get” lesson. I agree! I feel that our principal gives us broad leeway for controlling our own plans, discipline, and daily running of our classrooms. The nature of teaching the same subject and grade level requires that teachers plan together and teach the same thing at the same time. I think it would be fantastic if we could teach the same TEKS, but give each section of our subject a different title to allow for some more freedom in the content we cover. For example, we could have English III American Literature: Female Perspective, English III American Literature: The Voice of the Colonized, English III American Literature: When the Winners Tell Our Stories. These different lenses would allow teachers to bring in the literature they love while all teachers would cover the same TEKS, skills, writing development, and grammar practice. I don’t know if this qualifies as a small step, but I would love to see how it would impact our students. Within the different sections, teachers would be able to offer students choices of what they would like to read. We could make last minute changes based on classroom discussions and interests. If someone read something outside of class that seemed relevant, we could turn on a dime and redirect our plans to follow interests and involvement of our students.
I hope that we can do some of these things even within the set up we have now for our classes.