Before
I discuss the types of students that I saw on Friday I’d like to give some
background information on the classes that they are in. My coop teaches gifted
students at Donegal High, and throughout the day on Friday she taught a gifted
seminar (the unit is on happiness) and a preparation course for National History
Day. In between these two classes, my coop met with several gifted students to
discuss their class schedules. In addition to these, I also observed a humanities
class taught by another teacher at the school. Since most of my day was spent
working with gifted students, the group of students that stood out the most to
me on Friday were those that can best be described as “highly able”. I’ve never
before seen students that are so enthusiastic about school. Even in this group,
there were types.
One
type of student that I would like to note were certain “social” students in the
humanities class that I observed. It was a group of very well-dressed girls who
were much more interested in talking than in working on their worksheets. I
would say that their interaction with the subject of English was minimal; they
waited until there was almost no time left before wrapping up their conversation
and jotting down a few quick answers. After reminding them once to twice to say
on track, their teacher left them alone.
A
large majority of the students in the gifted seminar class seemed to enjoy the
course content and got along with each other very well. They joked with each
other and conversed freely while remaining respectful of each other’s ideas and
opinions during their discussion of what it means to be happy. They wore jeans
and various t-shirts; several were athletes and wore shirts that read “Nike” or
“Donegal field hockey”, and all were tidy and clean-looking. They all expressed
enthusiasm during their seminar, and when they later returned to work on their
history projects, I found creativity and skill in their writing. One student
was finishing a website that he had made that detailed the events of the
Lattimer Massacre—all of his information was organized by page, and he had even
included a four-page paper on process of project. Another student had created a
youtube video on nuclear energy, for which had had written a script. Towards
the end of the class, the students provided constructive feedback about each
other’s projects. There is no doubt that these students used an extraordinary
amount of creativity in their writing.
One of
the first students I met was “J” (I’ll stay clear of real names here) the
eleven-year-old completing ninth-grade classes. J was a small boy who dressed
very neatly and articulated himself extraordinarily well when he spoke;
speaking with him was like speaking to my mother, who prefers to use formal
language and correct grammar in all situations. According to my coop, J’s scholastic
achievements have been very impressive—as demonstrated by the way he skipped so
many grades—but he has really struggled to make friends.
If all
of these students were together in an English class, I think that the two most important
elements of their curriculum would be choice and a safe environment. The ability
to choose their projects would allow for relevance to the student’s outside
lives because they would be the people to design the direction and content of
their activities. The students in NHD class thrived on their freedom of choice—why
shouldn’t other students? The other factor that I mentioned, the safe
environment, would be just as essential for relevance because I don’t think
that students will want to share connections to their outside lives if they don’t
feel safe enough to do so. Shy students like J should feel free and safe enough
to contribute to class discussions and help point out the relevance of the topic
at hand.
My
favorite quote this week:
“If bringing common sense into a dysfunctional system makes me a radical—than I’m okay being a radical"–Michelle Rhee
Michelle
Rhee expressed the wish to develop a way to access teachers and “hold them
accountable” for the academic growth of their students. I agree that teachers
should be accessed on some kind of level, and not on the basis of whether or
not their students are performing well on exams. While I believe that everybody
can learn, I don’t believe that everyone wants to learn and a teacher shouldn’t
be held accountable for a student who refuses to try. While it is our responsibility
to do our best to motivate our students to be the best we can be, there might
still be some students that “slip through the net”. For example, my mom teaches
math for a cyber-charter school and is accessed, along with her colleges, on
several factors that are supposed to exhibit student growth. One of these
factors is student attendance. Classroom meetings are virtual, and students
often don’t show up, regardless of phone calls, participation points, etc. I
think that accessing teachers based on their student’s test scores is just as
unfair as testing them based on student attendance. The overall academic growth
of their students—growth expressed by not just testing alone, (for instance, by
examining student portfolios) is a much better way to measure the effectiveness
of a teacher.
We’ve
been brainstorming ways to reform our classrooms a lot in the past few weeks. Some
elements of reform that have really stuck with me are the need to move from
teacher-directed classrooms to those that are more student-centered. Instead of
deciding student knowledge based on the curriculum, we should be deciding what
goes into the curriculum based on the needs of our students. I think that
standardized testing is the biggest obstacle for this kind of teaching because
it sets the same goals for all students regardless of their needs. And that
goal, when it comes down to it, is not necessarily to have a strong writer’s
voice, to understand the deeper meaning or relevance of a text, or really be
proficient in lasting skills that are relevant to their outside lives. Like Jon
Stewart said in part three of the interview, “Look, I took the SATs. I did
fine. But that, to me, is not a predictor of how people were going to work in a
collaborative environment, were going to be in terms of creative problem solving…”In
order for constructive reform to take place, the emphasis on testing within
school systems needs to change.
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