Friday, October 26, 2012

Orchard School in 1926


Right before Fall Break, an Orchard parent gave me an old newspaper article from 1926 that highlighted on the unique attributes of Orchard School, which had been founded only four years earlier in 1922.

At that time, Orchard was located at 5050 N. Meridian—an old orchard on those grounds gave the school its name.

In 1926, Orchard had 80 students—15 to a class.

“(Orchard School) owes its existence to the desire of a small group of men and women to provide what they conceive to be a superior type of education.”

According to the article Orchard in 1926 had four main educational precepts:
  • It “believes that the same teacher must inevitably impart stimulus and instruction more effectively to a small group than to a large one.”
  • It “believes that the children need light, air, and room for play as much as they need instruction."
  • It “believes that children, like adults, work to bets advantage when their interest in the task at hand has been fully aroused.”
  • It “believes that teaching the student to think is a greater accomplishment than the imparting of information.”
The main reason Orchard was founded as--and has remained--an elementary-middle school is that the founders believed that by emphasizing the above precepts to children at a younger age, they would be prepared for a high school experience that would inevitably provide a more conventional, traditional way of learning.

In 1926, though, there were questions about Orchard’s program and teaching philosophy. Two misconceptions from the article follow:

“The first is represented by the very natural fear that pupils leaving this school might find themselves badly prepared for taking up the work of the public or other schools…It is now seems apparent, however, from the observation of such pupils as have changed schools, that they are more than able to hold their own (in other schools)…and that no misgivings need be felt on this score.”

“More widespread is the impression that pupils in schools of this type are not properly disciplined—that they are allowed to do as they please.”

“It is not physically possible to conduct a school of eighty children who are allowed to do as they please—the only result could be early and violent madness...Due, however, to smaller classes it is possible to permit and encourage a much wider range of interest and initiative…As interest grows, the necessity for the more obvious manifestations of discipline diminishes…There was headshaking enough when the birch rod was banished from the public schools, but there has appeared no necessity to recall it.”

The article goes on to explain Orchard’s belief in a well-rounded education that included physical exercise, recess, and music.

The article—written nearly 90 years ago—illustrates that Orchard’s founding precepts are still alive at Orchard and that people today can still have misconceptions and doubts about an child-centered education that strives to engage the child at his/her developmental level rather than be focused on the needs and desires of adults.

Although a lot has changed since 1926--Calvin Coolidge was president, the average car cost $380, and the average annual wage was a little over $1,000--the debate over education then is eerily similar to today.

Thank you, Kristy Sherman, for giving me the article!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

The Homework Dilemma


This week I read an interesting article entitled  “Tackling the Homework Dilemma” in the most recent issue of Middle Ground.

The author posed the provocative question “Is homework a subject or a method”, asking what is the actual purpose of homework.

Many believe homework helps students learn self-discipline and personal organization while others feel its purpose is to help students increase their knowledge and understanding. If it’s the latter (as I believe it is), then homework should be used to help students better learn and understand the material rather than to be a daily, have-to chore.

In the article one teacher in Minnesota assigns but does not collect or grade daily homework. Instead, he gives a short daily quiz at the beginning of every class over the concepts and skills covered in the previous night’s homework. This teacher finds that his daily quiz does the following for his students:
  • Students who know the content can skip the burden of doing redundant homework since the focus is on mastery, whether it comes from completing the homework assignment, paying attention in class, or background knowledge.
  • Nothing is gained by copying another student’s homework or having a parent do the assignment. (Copying homework is a rampant problem in any middle and high school.)
  • Lots of teacher time that would be used for correcting homework is freed up to do more effective, creative things for students

Homework remains a very controversial and divisive topic among and between parents and teachers. (I’ve written in other blogs of the lack of correlation between amount of homework and student performance.) When I shared this article with my wife (a high school math teacher), she dismissed the effectiveness of giving a daily quiz, which illustrates that two experienced educators can have drastically different feelings on this topic.

There can be value to homework in terms of seeing if students have truly mastered concepts and skills presented in class and if they truly understand those concepts and skills through work that demands higher-level thinking skills and critical and creative thought.

Similarly, it does help younger students practice and develop important habits and skills like personal responsibility, organization, and discipline.

Clearly reading, especially novels, is more easily done through homework than in class. (As an English teacher, I am more skeptical of at-home writing assignments because there is too great a possibility of adult assistance—hence, almost all my writing assignments are completed in class.)

There has also been much discussion of the “flipped-classroom” where students learn content at home and then use class time to demonstrate and deepen their understanding.

With the growing ubiquity of technology, homework is also becoming more collaborative and interactive with blogs, wikis, etc.

Nevertheless, it’s vitally important for teachers and parents to ensure that homework is necessary and needed and not overly repetitive and redundant for students. What I like about the teacher who gives a daily quiz over the previous night’s homework is he is empowering students to decide to what extent they need to complete the assignment depending on their understanding. He is respecting the fact that each and every one of his students brings to the classroom a range of abilities, motivational levels, and previous knowledge. His homework is not one-size fits all.

We must remember, also, that students—even in high school—are still kids who need free time, adequate rest, and unstructured opportunities to be creative and imaginative. 

Friday, October 12, 2012

Are Kids Today Smarter Than Their Grandparents?

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal the other day entitled "Are We Getting Smarter?"

Click for Article

The article's author James Flynn explains that the average IQ score has risen 3 points per decade since 1900. (I always thought I was smarter than my dad and grandfather; now I have quantitative evidence!)

To Flynn, one of the main reasons for this is back in the early 1900s, the world was simpler and required much less education. It wasn't unusual for someone to attain only an elementary school education and then either work in a factory or on a farm.

Additionally, the world back required less higher-level, abstract thought from the average person to be a productive--and gainfully employed--member of society. (If you read the article, note the difficulty people in a small town in Russia in the early 1990s had about interview questions that expected more than a literal response.)

Today's world demands much more from its citizens. We're expected to think more hypothetically, creatively, symbolically, and critically than in past generations. Jobs in today's world are not mechanical and demand we think in a much more abstract manner than in previous generations.

The rise in IQ scores (IQ test questions more often require higher-level thinking and problem-solving and pattern-recognition abilities) has resulted in schools and society in general devoting more time to developing in its students and citizens habits, skills, and attitudes that value more abstract thought.

As an example, when I compare my life as a student (45 years ago) to my career as a teacher, I provided my students much more open-ended classroom activities and assignments than I had as a student.

This goes hand in hand with the skills that are viewed as essential for success in the 21st century--skills like communication (oral and written), collaboration (the ability to work in groups with people who are different from you; the ability to peacefully resolve conflict and negotiate and compromise), critical and creative thinking (yes, we all need knowledge but today it's more what you can do with it, while before knowledge was often considered the end in itself), character (especially in a more impersonal digital age, we all need practice in developing responsibility, trustworthiness, empathy, honesty, and humility).

While the purpose of the article was not to comment on our current educational system, it made me reflect on how schools--in response to societal needs--are actually being more true to the founding principles of Orchard and the core precepts of progressive education from the early 1900s. I don't know if Dewey would be satisfied with all schools today--let alone using IQ tests as a measure of intelligence---but I think he would be pleased that schools today, especially schools like Orchard, are providing opportunities for kids to develop competencies and habits that allow for creative and innovative thought and have relevance and direct correlation with workforce needs.






Friday, October 5, 2012

Teacher Expectations and Student Performance


Back in 1964, Harvard professor, Robert Rosenthal, conducted a seminal experiment in elementary school education. He told teachers that they had a number of students in their class who, based on a “test” he administered, were on the “verge of an intense intellectual bloom”. The result of this experiment was the students—who had a normal bell curve range of IQs—saw their IQs increase.

The reason: As Rosenthal did more and more research, he saw the strong correlation between teachers’ expectations of their students and student performance. Rosenthal found that when teachers expected their students to succeed, they provided in their classrooms more time for students to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval and positive reinforcement (e.g., frequently smiling at students).

Obviously, teacher expectations alone do not guarantee student success, but it is a reminder how important they are.

When I first began teaching, I played on a softball team, which included a few teachers. One teammate was also a middle school English teacher; he taught in a public school in Brooklyn and was a 15-year veteran teacher. I was just starting my career and worked in a private school. I still remember him complaining about his students, their laziness and their inability and unwillingness to perform in the classroom. At one point after I asked him about what he taught, he just laughed and said, “Nothing. A good day for me is when a fight doesn’t break out in my class or in the lunchroom.”

While I never taught in (or even visited) his Brooklyn public school, Dave to me is nevertheless an example of a teacher who had no belief in his students. Perhaps he had been hardened by a frustrating and challenging educational environment, yet his attitude and cynical view of his students precluded success for any of his students.

Recent research, particularly at the University of Virginia, is trying to help teachers improve and enhance their expectations of their students. While the traditional way to do this has been simply to talk to teachers abut the importance of believing in their students, this research reveals that helping teachers foster positive classroom behaviors in the classroom (in other words how teachers interact with students) is far more efficient.

For example, if a teacher believes that boys are by nature disruptive in the classroom, he/she needs help in how to deal with an energetic boy rather than have discussions about how to overcome his/her stereotype of boys being disruptive. (We learn through cognitive dissonance but it’s a long process to change our beliefs rather than out actions.)

So, when a boy blurts out an answer in class, the teacher allows the student to explain his answer before reminding the boy about classroom rules and the need to raise his hand, etc. In this manner the boy does not become frustrated and--in the extreme--emotionally disengaged.

In his seminal work, Rosenthal identified 7 ways teachers can change their expectations: watch, listen, engage, experiment, meet, reach out, and reflect. (For details of each, see below). I wish 25 years ago I had shared these with my softball teammate.

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Watch how each student interacts. How do they prefer to engage? What do they seem to like to do? Observe so you can understand all they are capable of.

Listen. Try to understand what motivates them, what their goals are and how they view you, their classmates and the activities you assign them.

Engage. Talk with students about their individual interests. Don’t offer advice or opinions—just listen.

Experiment. Change how you react to challenging behaviors. Rather than responding quickly in the moment, take a breath. Realize that their behavior might just be a way of reaching out to you.

Meet. Each week, spend time with students outside your role as “teacher”. Let the students choose a game or other non-academic activity they’d like to do with you. You job is to not teach but watch, listen, and narrate what you see, focusing on students’ interests ands what they do well. This type of activity is really important for student with whom you often feel in conflict or who you avoid.

Reach out. Know what your students like to do outside of school. Make it a project for them to tell you about it using some medium in which they feel comfortable with: music, video, writing, etc. Find both individual and group time for them to share this with you. Watch and listen to how skilled, motivated, and interested they can be. Now think about school through their eyes.

Reflect. Think back on your own best and worst teachers. List five words for each that describe how you felt in your interactions with them. How did the best and worst make you feel? What specifically did they do or say that made you feel that way? Now think about how your students would describe you. Write down how they might describe you and why. How do your expectations or beliefs shape how they look at you? Are there parallels in your beliefs and their responses to you?