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. 

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.

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?

Benefits of Responsive Classroom Approach in Schools

A recent three-year study at the University of Virginia showed that students whose school faithfully used Responsive Classroom approaches had higher math and reading standardized test scores.

The University of Virginia study further showed that, in addition to improving student academic achievement, using Responsive Classroom techniques in the classroom led to an increase in student engagement, a decrease in discipline problems in the classroom and school, and an increase in higher-quaity teaching.

The study illustrates the importance of a school dedicating time to creating a classroom climate of trust, support, care, and interdependence as a prerequisite to students pushing and challenging themselves academically.

The basic components of Responsive Classroom are morning meeting (where every child receives and give a sincere welcome greeting to the school day), a proactive approach to discipline (which includes students have input in setting classrrom rules), positive teacher language and support of students, and opportunities for students to have a voice and choice in their learning (empowering them in the learning process and encouraging both critical and creative thought and expression).

In a larger context, Responsive Classroom helps students satisfy Maslow's hierarchy of needs: first we need our physiological needs satisfied, then safety/love/belonging (what Responsive Classroom provides), followed by esteem and self-actualization. The chance of high academic achievement is greatly reduced in the absence of a safe, nurturing, trusting environment, be it at home or at school.

Noted elementary school expert, Bob Sornson, stresses that students are "motivated by challenge but never too much". By having a classroom environment where students feel safe, known, and understood as individuals, they are more willing to take academic risks and appropriately push and challenge themselves. (There have been numerous studies that illustrate that students when given a choice of assignment will choose the one that best fits their needs and developmental readiness.)

Orchard is very fortunate to have Julie Wingate, a certified teacher-trainer in Responsive Classroom, help lead and inspire our faculty and staff in the benefits of using the Responsive Classroom philosophy and techniques.

Since its founding, Orchard has always had a commitment to the development of the whole child--academically/cognitively/intellectually, socially, emotionally, physically, ethically, organizationally. Yet this recent study quantifies what Orchard has intuitively known: a safe, nurturing classroom in essential for a student's academic and social-emotional growth.

Here are two links that provide a succinct overview of the Responsive Classroom approach Link and classroom examples of Responsive Classroom in action Link.

Neuroscience and Education

For roughly the past 20 years, the field of education has touted how research in neuroscience (how students best learn) will revolutionize classrooms.

Unfortunately there is much misinformation that teachers and parents believe to be true, “neuro-myths” that are believed to be true.

Two neuroscience truths that we all need to embrace are, first, that the brain is less hard-wired from birth than people have believed and, second, different parts of the brain act more interdependently than most of us believed.

In terms of the brain’s interdependence, a metaphor I recently read asks us to think of the different parts of the brain like the letters of the alphabet. By roughly 8 months, the letters have formed in the brain, e.g., the prefrontal cortex or hippocampus, but through experience, these “neural letters” activate in patterns to form “words, sentences, and paragraphs” of thought--in other words, they operate interdependently, not independently.

This is different from what many of us thought about the brain. While the prefrontal cortex controls decision-making and impulse control and the hippocampus stores memory, don’t think that other sections of the brain don’t influence decision-making and memory; again, different sections of the brain work as a team (or as letters) when it comes total brain function.

In education, this belief that one particular area of the brain controls a particular brain function and that the brain is hard-wired from birth led to a myth about dyslexia. While the back left of the brain influences sound processing and children with dyslexia have a poorly functioning back left of the brain, it does not mean that children with dyslexia can’t learn to read. More than one section of the brain influences how one reads; hence, educational interventions can help a child learn to read effectively.

Because the brain is less hard-wired and more flexible and changeable than many of us thought, the home or school environment is vital.

Because there is often not a direct link to neuroscience research, many teachers and parents have formed overly simplistic—or in the extreme wrong—implications in the classroom for how children best learn. In one article I recently read, teachers accepted the validity and accuracy of a bogus scientific research article if it included a picture of a brain scan.

While I've read a few books on neuroscience and the brain, neuroscience remains a vast, confusing topic and its implications for education are still forming.

But what has happened is many of us have taken our limited knowledge and understanding to form faulty, simplistic conclusions about brain research and its implications in the classroom.

Here's a link to a quiz about neuroscience and education See how well you do. (I had a group of heads of school take this quiz at conference this summer and no one cam close to answering all the questions correctly, especially me.): Link to Quiz.

Effective Parenting

Late in the summer, child psychologist and author Madeline Levine, whose new book is Teach Your Children Well, wrote an article in the New York Times about effective parenting.

Her article “Raising Successful Children” opines that the optimal parent is “one who is involved and responsive, who sets high expectations but respects the child’s autonomy.” The result is a child who does better academically, psychologically, and socially compared to parents who are “either permissive and less involved, or controlling and more involved.”

This type of parent does not praise his/her child for their talents and abilities, but for their effort, perseverance and determination.

This type of parent understands that the “central task of growing up is to develop a sense of self that is autonomous, confident and generally in accord with reality.”

This type of parent understands the importance allowing a child the opportunity to fail and to be unhappy.

“If you can’t stand to see your child unhappy, you are in the wrong business…Small challenges that start in infancy present the opportunities for ‘successful failures’, that is, failures your child can live with and grow from. To rush in too quickly, to shield them, to deprive them of those challenges is to deprive them of the tolls they will need to handle the inevitable, difficult, challenging and sometimes devastating demands of life.”

This type of parent understands the difference between appropriate and inappropriate parental involvement in their child’s life.

This type of parent wants the best for his/her child but also recognizes it is “the child’s job to grow, while yours is to control your anxiety so it doesn’t get in the way of his reasonable moves toward autonomy.”

Finally, this type of parent knows children “thrive best in an environment that is reliable, available, consistent, and non-interfering.”

How Children Succeed

It's never too early to begin identifying books about education I plan to read over Winter Break and beyond.

The other day I read a review in the New York Times Book Review of Paul Tough's book How Children Succeed.

Tough (by the time you finish this blog, you'll see the appropriateness of his name to the thesis of his book) explains that most parents in America subscribe to what he calls the "cognitive hypothesis...that success today depends primarily on cognitive skills--the kind of intelligence that gets measured on I.Q. tests...and that the best way to develop these skills is to practice them as much as possible, beginning as early as possible."

However, Tough wants parents to subscribe (and provides support in his book) to the "character hypothesis--the notion that non-cognitive skills, like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brain power to achieving success."

So how do you develop character in kids?

Tough succinctly states "character is created by encountering and overcoming failure."

His book then focuses on how on children from both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum are not offered the opportunity to develop their character.

While from the New York Times review it seems to me Tough might be guilty of over-generalizing the experiences of wealthy and poor kids, his book provides a warning for parents and teachers who at one extreme overly control or too tightly control a child's life and at the other are too laissez faire.

His conclusion is that America is a country "of very privileged children and very poor ones, both deprived of the emotional and intellectual experiences that make for sturdy character."

I'm looking forward to reading this book in full. It follows in the recent educational trend (Dweck, Wagner, Walsh Click) that student character and attitude trump cognitive ability and that schools and home need to offer kids more opportunities to struggle through and deal with setbacks, and learn to persevere and to defer gratification.

Remember, self-esteem comes through practice, competence, and achievement--and, in the progressive education tradition, needs to come from within (intrinsically not extrinsically).

Here's the link to Tough's book on Amazon: Click