Ch Ch Changes

By its nature, change happens slowly. That may be frustrating, but it's pretty much true across the board. Perhaps it is for that reason that former DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was not well-liked (I have other reasons for not liking her, as do many other people, I'm sure, but that is beside the point). In this article, Larry Cuban explains why her 15 minutes are pretty much up. Let's hope he is right.

Speaking of 15 minutes, a college freshman is sure to get accolades for writing this intriguing article about the devaluing of the teaching profession. After I finished reading it, my first thought was: Teachers should strive to have their students write this well by the time they graduate. This girl is going places.

Speaking v. Writing

Of the essays I've perused while looking over students' shoulders, a fair number of them are of quality but need work, but almost all of them are downright terrible. Why can't kids write? I find it especially interesting that these kids, when given the chance, are extremely articulate when they speak. I know that some of them have learning disabilities that hinder their writing skills, but that is not the case with most of them. I was working with several students this past week who could not write down a coherent sentence, yet when I asked them to explain to me what they mean, they were able to express it perfectly. I realize these are two completely different skill sets, but I will never understand why what's in a student's brain gets all jumbled up when s/he tries to write down his/her thoughts. And while I'm sure it's possible to teach this skill, I do not know how to do it. Often I find that when I talk it out with the students, they are able to take what they told me and write it down on paper, with much prompting from me. I think if I better understood how the brain worked, it would be easier for me to help students who literally cannot write a coherent sentence to save their lives.

Also, I am constantly fascinated with how many little tiny moments of which our lives are made up. There is one student in the 7th grade reading class before lunch I have again in an English class after lunch, and it was like he was a completely different person in each period. In reading, he was one of the only students on task, asking questions, and being polite, yet in English he kept his head down the whole time, and it was only after the students had been working on their tests for 10 minutes that I noticed he hadn't even started, and only did so with prompting from me. Same thing when he finished his test and had to finish his packet. He was quiet and did his work once he was asked, but was nowhere near his usual, enthusiastic self. It was actually quite disturbing how much his personality changed in English. I'm thinking something happened during lunch. I know this kid has emotional problems and a pretty terrible family life, but because he does not have an IEP, no one at school can really do anything about it. That sucks, but that's the truth.

Which leads me to yet another educational oped. In case you haven't guessed yet, I heart progressive educational reform. This one is fantastic, and I agree with everything said. We really need to get on this.

Creative Writing!

I love it when teachers are inventive and relevant at the same time, which rarely happens. I've started filling in for the aide on maternity leave and one of the classes she helps with is a reading class made exclusively for 7th graders who failed that portion of the SOLs. It's one of those classes in which the instructor has a script, and because it is very prescribed, it is often very boring to the students, thus they don't learn, thus they fail the test again, and therefore the class has no purpose and educators are forced to repeat cycles that have failed several times over because reform comes at a snail's pace. However, the few times I have observed this class, I was intrigued by it, as were most of the students. Today the instructor admitted to me after class that she often strays from the script.

Hence how she was able to bring in a guest speaker to talk about forensics. This was extremely interesting to the students and relevant as well, since the next few articles they read from their textbooks deal with this subject. The guest speaker made forensics more visual, more life-like, and, what is necessary to yet often missing from education, more applicable to the real world.

Anyway, to the butt of this post. The students read a very short blurb in their textbooks every day and prior to the reading, the teacher goes over relevant vocabulary. Today she reviewed the vocabulary and after talking about it with her students, instructed them to write a short story about anything they wished using at least three of these vocab words. Those students who wanted to share did so, and Ms. K. pointed out that from the context of the stories, it's clear that these students know what the words mean. Talk about a fun way to make learning relevant to everyday life. And in this case, she is teaching reading strategies (which most of these students clearly lack) without saying in that boring old way, "This is how you can tell what a word means." Hooray creative writing! Learning can be fun!