Jun
6
Thinking About Adolescent Literacy
June 6, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
After reading Mary Zehr’s “Southern States Urged to Tackle Adolescent Literacy,” published online from Ed Week, I was struck at again how often major media articles are guilty of gross oversimplification.
The article chronicles the call for a detailed problem to address “the most critical priority for public middle grades and high schools,” adolescent reading weaknesses, a by a sixteen state regional education board. It also articulates the need for more professional development of teachers in the area of reading strategies. It all triggered some thoughts that I often have regarding the “reading crisis.”
I don’t think many would argue that more needs to be done to improve the reading ability of students beyond primary school. In my experience, I share the notion that we too often stop reading instruction too early. However, I would clarify that it is formal instruction that wanes. While this fact might be fine for a student in the context of a rich literacy environment or reading culture, it leaves those who are not at a significant disadvantage, one that only grows worse with every year it is not addressed. Students from strong reading cultures seem to almost default into making inferences, connections, and gleaning deeper understanding. As the gap widens and stratifies between students it is not surprising that reading becomes a “critical priority.” Addressing the priority may require more formal instruction. Yet, formal instruction need not be the boring, mundane, old-time religion that many of us can be tempted to roll-out in an effort to address the problem.
Most students read all the time, even the “non-readers” to a great extent. Of course they do not always read what schools deem as important, as others have highlighted eloquently. I would also suggest that they do not typically read deeply, unless it is something that appeals to them in some profound way. The reasons for this are many, likely far too many to itemize in a single article.
Still, I am always amazed at how easily we tend to forget or dismiss the fact they we live at time when more human beings are literate and schooled than at any time in history. More people than ever can read. Now, this is a different metric from reading well, but it is something that should at least be acknowledged as some measure of success. There was a time, not that long ago, that only the smartest or the wealthiest learned any kind of literacy skills. Plus, consider that it really is not until the fourth or fifth grade that most students are truly reading at a level that reaches any kind of adequate proficiency, meaning they are reading texts of length and complexity without a lot of illustrations. Thus, most adolescents have only been really reading, a skill with an array of increasingly complicated and sophisticated demands, for far fewer than ten years.
Yes, the demands placed on our students have only increased and better practices are the only way to foster students who read well, but these increased demands require increased innovations in our teaching. We simply are not solving the same kinds of problems anymore.
On a related note, Jim Burke’s English Companion Ning has recently begun a web-based discussion group around Kelly Gallagher’s recent book Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It, which has some spirited discussions and keen insights and includes responses from the author. I suspect it would be interesting for many reading this.
Feb
15
Reviving a Massachusetts Writing Project
February 15, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a retreat for the revitalization of the Massachusetts Writing Project. As a still very newly appointed Technology Liaison of the Boston Writing Project, I arrived without much of an idea of what was to happen. Yet, it was a day and a half on Cape Cod, someplace that I had ironically never been since moving to the East Coast, and I was very kindly asked to participate. It turned out to be a pretty interesting and exciting event.
Despite the biting cold, the setting was warm and welcoming. The beach may have retained an austere beauty, empty as it was, but a small group of representatives from three different project sites set about reviving a state alliance. Our mission was to gain deeper insight in how to join each of the projects into a meaningful body that would add value to the individual sites. We began to realize that there are certain efforts that are strengthened by sheer volume of members, for example more political advocacy on a Beacon Hill.
Ultimately, I am always energized by working on consort with teacher consultants from various Writing Projects. There is an enlivened spirit in a room of Writing Project people. We accomplished a lot for such a short amount of time. Of course, now is when the accomplishments will truly be measured, after the fact. Will the enthusiasm from an isolated weekend on the Cape sustain and deliver actual results? It is hard to say. However, the outlook is good. I suppose we will all see if it works.
Feb
2
Random Thoughts on Education from a Sage Veteran
February 2, 2009 | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Beginning in November and running through the new year Bruce Schauble, of the blog Throughlines, wrote a series of four outstanding reflections titled “On Education.” Since leaving the classroom, he took some time to compose some of the more compelling thoughts about teaching I have read lately.
“On Education: One” briefly examines the indeterminacy and unpredictability that make the profession an exciting place to work for both teacher and students. I particularly like his analogy to the writing process and all the great quotes.
Part two is a fantastic blend of nostalgia and insight, meditating on Robert Frost and a talk he gave at Amherst College in 1931 called “Education by Poetry.” The Frost transcript alone was a newly discovered treasure for me, but Schauble’s commentary provides a clean distillation of Frost’s most acute remarks, as well as an enlightened conclusion.
In part three, he draws a chord from a presentation by a Stanford Technology Ventures Program professor about creative thinking and entrepreneurship to the core of lesson planning and design. It wrestles with the reality that both depth and breadth are truly needed in a classroom and striking some balance is often the key.
The final installment is an extension on the theme of needed balance in classroom. Beginning with an homage to the late Donald Murray, including a link to a great remembrance from the New Hampshire Writing Project, takes a critical eye at how the assessment game can often limit options and affords little down time for revision of process, projects, whatever. Ultimately, he uses a wonderful metaphor to articulate the dual, dynamic nature of the kind of balance he believes are at the heart of a great educational experience.
I include this series to share some really lovely, thought-provoking prose that caught my attention. I read a lot of online material, and I thought this to be some of the best blogging I have recently read. I believe it to be really worth a look by others, so much so I even commented which I don’t do as often as I should. Enjoy.
Jan
19
On Predicting Teacher Success According to Gladwell
January 19, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
This may be a bit less current, but it was something I have been meaning to post.
While there is certain amount of criticism and a minor degree of backlash regarding the work of Malcolm Gladwell, I found his recent New Yorker piece, “Most Likely to Succeed,” to be a rather compelling read. Of course his comparison of teachers to NFL quarterbacks has a kind of sensational appeal, probably a consideration of the editorial staff. Yet, The New Yorker reigns as one of the most venerable remaining American periodicals, so I like to think that there was more to their decision to run this than that. I also believe the piece might have been better served with more in-depth explanation and less “back-of-the-envelope calculation” from tangential experts. Still, the essential idea, that there is little that can be learned about a prospective teacher prior to their entering the classroom that adequately predicts their success rate, is what lingers as most intriguing.
Perhaps it was because I was a late-comer to the teaching profession that I became acutely aware that many of the metrics that are used to project how successful an individual will be in the classroom were almost completely rubbish. Transcripts, for one, always seemed to be overvalued in my mind. So much attention is paid to the contents of a transcript at the detriment of what was actually learned. Granted it is often used as an early threshold and, of course, on some abstract level university grades demonstrate some minor level of competence. Yet, beyond passing a course, a given mark has increasingly less value the more distance there is from the immediate course context. Moreover, judging someone in any capacity based on where they went to university has always seemed more to do with the self serving elitism of the arbiter than anything else. Still, these elements always seem to be significant factors in hiring teachers.
In the NFL, it seems the focus in finding a quarterback is on a technical assessment and the merits of the program from where the individual played at university. Again, neither is inherently helpful. I would submit that in nearly all sports, isolated drills and technical tests are often used to determine ability. Yet performances outside the context of the game, where real pressure to perform exists with real obstacles and challenges to success are always present, are not terribly useful for the complicated decision making and in-the-moment execution of an NFL quarterback. This is what makes the combine pretty ineffective in measuring quarterback performance. Moreover, Gladwell is right in the sense that it is almost as if the NFL quarterback is playing a different game than was played at the college level. For instance, quarterbacks that run the ball a lot have never lasted terribly long at the professional level. Plus, how many university coaches have true intimate knowledge of working with quarterbacks at the professional level and use that as a key feature in their program – half a dozen, maybe. So, even the instruction and knowledge that a college quarterback might receive may not always immediately transferable to the professional ranks.
Perhaps, the most compelling section of the article was the third element that introduced the implications of what Gladwell dubs the “quarterback problem” within the financial advising industry. Clearly, this was the thrust of Gladwell’s point, combining the commentary about gatekeepers and lowering the standards of entry. The argument for changing the standards of entry into the profession has merit. I’ve long thought that the apprentice model is far better than the current one in place. The current student teaching model is at best an aberrated experience of what it is like to work in the classroom. More often than not the experience is too short and inadequate. Additionally, playing the numbers and casting a wider net in hopes of catching higher quality fish is certainly a legitimate strategy, albeit an expensive one both in time and resources.
Ultimately, I liked the piece. I found it to be really well crafted, from a writing standpoint. I also thought it was, in some ways, a terrible oversimplification. Apparently, his brother is a principal and this likely offers Gladwell a window that both reveals and obscures. Yet, the kernal idea, that “what matters more than anything in predicting professional success is the quality of the learning environment that the quarterback [teacher] is drafted into, not the quality of the experience he was drafted from,” remains fascinating. Sure he has drawn criticism already across the blogosphere, but his comparison is not easily dismissed. He himself commented on the response the article has created in a pseudo-afterword on his blog. Maybe the best aspect of the piece is the fact that it has sparked such conversations to begin.
Dec
27
Discussing Participatory Culture on Teachers Teaching Teachers
December 27, 2008 | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
During the summer I attended the Boston Writing Project’s Summer Institute which made me a part of the network of education professionals that is the National Writing Project. As a representative from the Boston site, I also travelled to my first NWP Annual Meeting, in San Antonio this year.
While there I made it to a host of presentations and workshops, which will likely provide material for some time to come. All of them were fantastic. One specific session I attended, Reading the Research: Media Education and Literacy in the 21st Century, was focused on on a white paper published by the New Media Literacies Project at MIT titled Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. It proved to be fascinating conversation with teachers of all different levels from around the country, encompassing media, technology, and 21st century literacies. There are even some photos from the session.
When asked to create a visual representation of our table’s thoughts on the article, we engaged in much metaphorical deliberation. Eventually, we settled on a rather creative synthesis that I sketched out in a hurry. It involved Harold, purple crayon in hand, creating a world where a king that had no clothes weighed scales of judgement, while his fool, Socrates, lectured on the unworthiness of living the unexamined life. As pretentious as it might sound out of context, it really was a rather nifty fusion of the table’s wide variety of viewpoints, which was no easy task.
The white paper that inspired all this semiotic silliness, although fairly lengthy, is definitely worth the read. In it are an array of interesting observations about challenges that education faces in addressing some of the emergent needs of living and working in the world today, with the ever-evolving new media developments. As a follow-up event, I was part of a panel discussion on a webcast episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers. Considering the fact that my listening to TTT on EdTechTalkis one of the primary reasons for my becoming involved with the National Writing Project in the first place it was a real treat. The podcast of the episode is now available for everyone to hear. Have a listen and let me know what you think.
Dec
22
Not Another Blog Attempt
December 22, 2008 | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
“Not another blog attempt,” I thought as I clicked the start button of this new foray. It has been an ominous beginning. In fact, I fretted a bit before actually clicking and committing. I am a teacher, a new father, as well as a husband. Rarely is my time my own. My online experience is already fractured into so many splinters, “How is this one going to compete?” The real answer is I don’t know, but I have been trying to carve more time out for my own reflections about teaching and learning. Plus, content about my new daughter has all but taken over my personal site. So, in an effort to keep some aspects of life marginally separated, Rogue Teacher is born.
