Some teachers simply aren't very smart. This lesson might have worked if
the teacher asked white students to volunteer to play the slaves. It would
have let kids see the whole issue in a new light. But the way it was done
was damaging and, in addition, just plain stupid. This teacher doesn't
understand the terrible role of racism and slavery in our heritage.
Va. teacher holds mock slave auction
By Kevin Sieff
Washington Post
April 11, 2011
Trying to bring a Civil War history lesson to life, teacher Jessica Boyle
turned her fourth grade Norfolk classroom into a slave auction: She
ordered black and mixed race students to one side of the classroom.
Then, the white students took turns buying them.
The Washington Post's Anqoinette Crosby gives you the story on reporter
Kevin Sieff's article about a Va. teacher who had her black and mixed
race students 'sold' to her white students in a mock slave auction and
Jodie Foster sits down with The Post's Jen Chaney to talk about her new
film starring Mel Gibson. Plus, Civil War re-enactors at Fort Sumter where
the first shots of the war were fired.
Video: The Washington Post's Anqoinette Crosby gives you the story on
reporter Kevin Sieff's article about a Va. teacher who had her black and
mixed race students 'sold' to her white students in a mock slave auction
and Jodie Foster sits down with The Post's Jen Chaney to talk about her
new film starring Mel Gibson. Plus, Civil War re-enactors at Fort Sumter
where the first shots of the war were fired.
Parent complaints began rolling in shortly after the April 1 lesson, and the
principal at Sewells Point Elementary School, Mary B. Wrushen, wrote to
parents last week that Boyle had gone too far.
“The lesson could have been thought through more carefully, as to not
offend her students or put them in an uncomfortable situation,” Wrushen
wrote.
Lessons on the Civil War have long been among the most sensitive topics
in Virginia classrooms, many located near the grounds of the
Confederacy’s bloodiest battles. And the role that slavery played in the
conflict’s origins has been particularly controversial.
Boyle’s attempt to drive home the connection between slavery and war
took place in an elementary school named for one of Virginia’s earliest
Civil War skirmishes, the Battle of Sewells Point, which was fought within
sight of campus grounds, near the mouth of Hampton Roads. Boyle
taught her lesson less than two weeks before the 150th anniversary of
the conflict.
“She had not conducted a mock slave auction in class before,” Norfolk
public schools spokeswoman Elizabeth Thiel Mather wrote in a statement.
She added that “appropriate personnel action is being taken” but would
not discuss the details.
Boyle has been teaching in Norfolk for six years.
Sewells Point’s fourth grade class is about 40 percent black and 40
percent white.
Calls made to Boyle through the school’s communications department
were not returned.
Last month, an Ohio television station reported that a teacher at an
elementary school near Columbus divided a fourth grade class into slaves
and masters.
the teacher asked white students to volunteer to play the slaves. It would
have let kids see the whole issue in a new light. But the way it was done
was damaging and, in addition, just plain stupid. This teacher doesn't
understand the terrible role of racism and slavery in our heritage.
Va. teacher holds mock slave auction
By Kevin Sieff
Washington Post
April 11, 2011
Trying to bring a Civil War history lesson to life, teacher Jessica Boyle
turned her fourth grade Norfolk classroom into a slave auction: She
ordered black and mixed race students to one side of the classroom.
Then, the white students took turns buying them.
The Washington Post's Anqoinette Crosby gives you the story on reporter
Kevin Sieff's article about a Va. teacher who had her black and mixed
race students 'sold' to her white students in a mock slave auction and
Jodie Foster sits down with The Post's Jen Chaney to talk about her new
film starring Mel Gibson. Plus, Civil War re-enactors at Fort Sumter where
the first shots of the war were fired.
Video: The Washington Post's Anqoinette Crosby gives you the story on
reporter Kevin Sieff's article about a Va. teacher who had her black and
mixed race students 'sold' to her white students in a mock slave auction
and Jodie Foster sits down with The Post's Jen Chaney to talk about her
new film starring Mel Gibson. Plus, Civil War re-enactors at Fort Sumter
where the first shots of the war were fired.
Parent complaints began rolling in shortly after the April 1 lesson, and the
principal at Sewells Point Elementary School, Mary B. Wrushen, wrote to
parents last week that Boyle had gone too far.
“The lesson could have been thought through more carefully, as to not
offend her students or put them in an uncomfortable situation,” Wrushen
wrote.
Lessons on the Civil War have long been among the most sensitive topics
in Virginia classrooms, many located near the grounds of the
Confederacy’s bloodiest battles. And the role that slavery played in the
conflict’s origins has been particularly controversial.
Boyle’s attempt to drive home the connection between slavery and war
took place in an elementary school named for one of Virginia’s earliest
Civil War skirmishes, the Battle of Sewells Point, which was fought within
sight of campus grounds, near the mouth of Hampton Roads. Boyle
taught her lesson less than two weeks before the 150th anniversary of
the conflict.
“She had not conducted a mock slave auction in class before,” Norfolk
public schools spokeswoman Elizabeth Thiel Mather wrote in a statement.
She added that “appropriate personnel action is being taken” but would
not discuss the details.
Boyle has been teaching in Norfolk for six years.
Sewells Point’s fourth grade class is about 40 percent black and 40
percent white.
Calls made to Boyle through the school’s communications department
were not returned.
Last month, an Ohio television station reported that a teacher at an
elementary school near Columbus divided a fourth grade class into slaves
and masters.
Thinking impaired by fear
Extreme Fear blog
by Jeff Wise
Jeff Wise is a New York-based science writer and author of Extreme Fear:
The Science of Your Mind in Danger
April 20, 2010
How the Bravest Are Different
...So what have researchers found? Well, that the brave are different from
you and me. Elite troops like Navy SEALs show different patterns of brain
activation when they deal with the stress of SERE. And it's not, as you might
expect, that their stress hormones become less elevated. On the contrary,
their cortisol and noradrenaline levels shoot much higher than an average
soldiers' does. This probably helps them take on the physical and mental
demands of the situation. Crucially, once the crisis is past, their hormones
quickly return to their baseline levels.
The elite soldiers' brains also responded differently to the surge of
hormones when it was occurring. Along with high levels of a chemical called
DHEA that seems to mute the more negative aspects of stress, Navy SEALs
have elevated concentrations of a neurotransmitter called Neuropeptide Y,
which binds to synapses in the frontal cortex and modifies the way it
responds to noradrenaline. The effect is likely to prevent some of the
undesirable effects of noradrenaline, such as dissociation and cognitive
narrowing, while allowing it to keep amping up performance in other parts of
the brain. Reports the New Scientist:
Less-resilient individuals, on the other hand, seem to have a lower capacity
for NPY production. What is more, their smaller surge of the neurotransmitter
during SERE training seems to deplete their reserves, causing NPY levels to
drop below baseline for at least 24 hour.
Right now, researchers affiliated with the US Navy are planning experiments
to determine whether it will be possible to boost the performance of SERE
trainees by giving them nutritional supplements containing neuro-enhancing
chemicals. If that works, it's a strategy that we all could easily adopt: DHEA,
at least, is widely available in health food stores.
In the meantime, those of us who want to be more brave right now can
ponder the lesson of another recent SERE study, which found that soldiers
who adopted an active coping style fared better than those who took a
passive or emotion-focused approach. In other words, when the going gets
tough, you can mimicking the brain activity of the bravest performers by
adopting their mindset: look on the bright side and take decisive action.
Extreme Fear blog
by Jeff Wise
Jeff Wise is a New York-based science writer and author of Extreme Fear:
The Science of Your Mind in Danger
April 20, 2010
How the Bravest Are Different
...So what have researchers found? Well, that the brave are different from
you and me. Elite troops like Navy SEALs show different patterns of brain
activation when they deal with the stress of SERE. And it's not, as you might
expect, that their stress hormones become less elevated. On the contrary,
their cortisol and noradrenaline levels shoot much higher than an average
soldiers' does. This probably helps them take on the physical and mental
demands of the situation. Crucially, once the crisis is past, their hormones
quickly return to their baseline levels.
The elite soldiers' brains also responded differently to the surge of
hormones when it was occurring. Along with high levels of a chemical called
DHEA that seems to mute the more negative aspects of stress, Navy SEALs
have elevated concentrations of a neurotransmitter called Neuropeptide Y,
which binds to synapses in the frontal cortex and modifies the way it
responds to noradrenaline. The effect is likely to prevent some of the
undesirable effects of noradrenaline, such as dissociation and cognitive
narrowing, while allowing it to keep amping up performance in other parts of
the brain. Reports the New Scientist:
Less-resilient individuals, on the other hand, seem to have a lower capacity
for NPY production. What is more, their smaller surge of the neurotransmitter
during SERE training seems to deplete their reserves, causing NPY levels to
drop below baseline for at least 24 hour.
Right now, researchers affiliated with the US Navy are planning experiments
to determine whether it will be possible to boost the performance of SERE
trainees by giving them nutritional supplements containing neuro-enhancing
chemicals. If that works, it's a strategy that we all could easily adopt: DHEA,
at least, is widely available in health food stores.
In the meantime, those of us who want to be more brave right now can
ponder the lesson of another recent SERE study, which found that soldiers
who adopted an active coping style fared better than those who took a
passive or emotion-focused approach. In other words, when the going gets
tough, you can mimicking the brain activity of the bravest performers by
adopting their mindset: look on the bright side and take decisive action.
| Blogs |
Thinking and decision-making
Are decision-makers in schools engaging in
smart thinking?
smart thinking?
"Many times in business we keep trying to fix something that isn't
working simply because we've spent a lot of time and energy on the
project. Admitting defeat is hard, but having the restraint to fold
ultimately protects you and keeps you in the game--and this is a skill
you don't necessarily learn in business school."
Who said the above?
a. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE;
b. Babette Pepaj, film producer;
c. Bill Gates, Microsoft founder
working simply because we've spent a lot of time and energy on the
project. Admitting defeat is hard, but having the restraint to fold
ultimately protects you and keeps you in the game--and this is a skill
you don't necessarily learn in business school."
Who said the above?
a. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE;
b. Babette Pepaj, film producer;
c. Bill Gates, Microsoft founder
The 5 Big Education Stories to Watch in 2011
December 30, 2010
by Emily Alpert
...The Battle over School Reform
This year, San Diego Unified started cobbling together a new vision of
what schools need to succeed this year. It's calling it "community-based
school reform," a decentralized system where educators at each school
work together to come up with ideas.
It also emphasizes critical thinking, parent involvement and using data
to help teachers improve instruction. And the teachers union has also
hinted that it wants to expand schools' reach beyond the classroom,
taking on students' emotional and health needs.
The plan is being posed as an alternative to controversial changes
backed by the Obama Administration, such as tying test scores to
teacher evaluation and closing faltering schools. The San Diego Unified
school board, which is strongly backed by the teachers union, has
steered clear of those ideas, calling them disruptive and unproven.
Putting forward its own ideas is a sort of salvo in the battle over school
reform.
Now the question is whether it will work. So far much of the plan is theory
rather than practice, but San Diego Unified has also continued to improve
on standardized tests. To prove itself, the new reform model will need to
keep showing results and get backing from parents and community
members.
It'll also be important to see how theoretical ideas, such as pushing more
critical thinking, really play out in classrooms. The success or failure of
this brand of school reform will also reflect back on the school board. And
that, in turn, could impact the campaign to change how the school board
is chosen...
Maura Larkins comment:
The teachers union wants teachers to do critical thinking? That's
almost as hard to swallow as claims by administrators that they want
teachers to be able and willing to think analytically. Schools have
been designed for the comfort of adults. Most teachers are happy
NOT doing much critical thinking beyond the narrow confines of
student texts, and that's exactly the way that administrators and
unions like it.
Any significant reform requires destroying the basis of the current
system: every one stays quiet, every one stay is his or her place.
School boards pay lawyers plenty to keep employees quiet.
Reform requires teacher buy-in. You can't stuff it down their
throats. Teachers do need to be drawn toward the joys of critical
thinking, but it won't be the union that does that, nor will it be the
administrators and their pals at San Diegans 4. I think Obama is
offering the best bet for real reform.
December 30, 2010
by Emily Alpert
...The Battle over School Reform
This year, San Diego Unified started cobbling together a new vision of
what schools need to succeed this year. It's calling it "community-based
school reform," a decentralized system where educators at each school
work together to come up with ideas.
It also emphasizes critical thinking, parent involvement and using data
to help teachers improve instruction. And the teachers union has also
hinted that it wants to expand schools' reach beyond the classroom,
taking on students' emotional and health needs.
The plan is being posed as an alternative to controversial changes
backed by the Obama Administration, such as tying test scores to
teacher evaluation and closing faltering schools. The San Diego Unified
school board, which is strongly backed by the teachers union, has
steered clear of those ideas, calling them disruptive and unproven.
Putting forward its own ideas is a sort of salvo in the battle over school
reform.
Now the question is whether it will work. So far much of the plan is theory
rather than practice, but San Diego Unified has also continued to improve
on standardized tests. To prove itself, the new reform model will need to
keep showing results and get backing from parents and community
members.
It'll also be important to see how theoretical ideas, such as pushing more
critical thinking, really play out in classrooms. The success or failure of
this brand of school reform will also reflect back on the school board. And
that, in turn, could impact the campaign to change how the school board
is chosen...
Maura Larkins comment:
The teachers union wants teachers to do critical thinking? That's
almost as hard to swallow as claims by administrators that they want
teachers to be able and willing to think analytically. Schools have
been designed for the comfort of adults. Most teachers are happy
NOT doing much critical thinking beyond the narrow confines of
student texts, and that's exactly the way that administrators and
unions like it.
Any significant reform requires destroying the basis of the current
system: every one stays quiet, every one stay is his or her place.
School boards pay lawyers plenty to keep employees quiet.
Reform requires teacher buy-in. You can't stuff it down their
throats. Teachers do need to be drawn toward the joys of critical
thinking, but it won't be the union that does that, nor will it be the
administrators and their pals at San Diegans 4. I think Obama is
offering the best bet for real reform.
“Everything in their system is
built to build consensus slowly,”
said one American official who
would not be quoted by name
because of the delicacy of
discussions with Japan. “And
everything in this crisis is about
moving quickly. It’s not working.”
--American official to New York
Times regarding March 2011
meltdown at nuclear plant
Dearth of Candor From Japan’s
Leadership
The Japanese are frustrated by
officials' failure to communicate
clearly.
By HIROKO TABUCHI, KEN
BELSON and NORIMITSU
ONISHI
New York Times
March 16, 2011
With all the euphemistic
language on display from
officials handling Japan’s
nuclear crisis, one commodity
has been in short supply:
information.
When an explosion shook one
of many stricken reactors at
Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant on Saturday,
power company officials initially
offered a typically opaque, and
understated, explanation...
built to build consensus slowly,”
said one American official who
would not be quoted by name
because of the delicacy of
discussions with Japan. “And
everything in this crisis is about
moving quickly. It’s not working.”
--American official to New York
Times regarding March 2011
meltdown at nuclear plant
Dearth of Candor From Japan’s
Leadership
The Japanese are frustrated by
officials' failure to communicate
clearly.
By HIROKO TABUCHI, KEN
BELSON and NORIMITSU
ONISHI
New York Times
March 16, 2011
With all the euphemistic
language on display from
officials handling Japan’s
nuclear crisis, one commodity
has been in short supply:
information.
When an explosion shook one
of many stricken reactors at
Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant on Saturday,
power company officials initially
offered a typically opaque, and
understated, explanation...
American schools are run like
NASA.
NASA.
Why This Website
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation
SDCOE
CVESD
Castle Park
Elementary School
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
Office Admin Hearings
Larkins OAH Hearing
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation
SDCOE
CVESD
Castle Park
Elementary School
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
Office Admin Hearings
Larkins OAH Hearing
A Tale of Two Schools Thinking Deeper
May 4, 2011
by Emily Alpert
"The Rainbow Fish" is a beautiful tale: A shimmering fish gives away its
glittery scales one by one to befriend others. It's often seen as a parable
about sharing and selfishness.
But one kid at Torrey Pines Elementary pointed out in an essay that
there was something fishy about it.
"The adult writers did not realize that they were teaching kids an immoral
way to make friends," the fifth grader wrote of "The Rainbow Fish" and
two other books. The child said giving someone a gift the way the fish did
might strengthen a bond of friendship, but couldn't actually create one.
Such sophisticated arguments might not seem so surprising at Torrey
Pines, perched on all-but-oceanfront real estate in La Jolla. But across
town in the refugee hub of City Heights, Joyner Elementary is doing just
the same thing with classes of poor children still mastering English.
These two dramatically different schools are prodding kids to think
deeper and analyze texts, instead of just understanding the words. They
are trying to take critical thinking — a skill usually associated with college
seminars and Plato — all the way down to elementary school and "The
Rainbow Fish."
The San Diego Unified school board has enshrined critical thinking as
one of its reform goals, principles rooted in the idea that schools can
come up with their own ways to improve themselves. But San Diego
Unified is also setting out ideals that it wants schools to strive for, like
fostering deeper thinking.
It mirrors a national push to deepen lessons so that kids learn to
synthesize and evaluate information, crafting their own arguments and
debunking others. Deputy Superintendent Nellie Meyer called it "an
expansion of the definition of success beyond the standardized cookie-
cutter model."
"We're preparing them for a world where they can easily have access to
information via Google," said Michelle Nieto, a literacy teacher who helps
Torrey Pines. "They need to know what to do with all that information.
How do you make meaning of it?"
Joyner and Torrey Pines aren't testing out these reforms because the
school board said so. They've used these strategies for years, working
with two educators, Nieto and Michelle Montali, who they dub "the
Michelles." Nieto used to work at Joyner; both now work part-time at
Torrey Pines.
Their consulting business brings the same training to teachers from
Sacramento County to Coronado. At Torrey Pines, it was a quest to
challenge kids who came to kindergarten already reading. Joyner wanted
to ensure English learners didn't decode words without understanding.
What is new is that the school district has started urging other schools to
visit and see what they're doing. That means that Joyner and Torrey
Pines could become a blueprint for how to ramp up critical thinking in San
Diego Unified, an appealing idea that can be slippery for educators and
parents to actually pin down — and sometimes difficult to juggle with the
demands of state tests.
"Every school thinks they're teaching critical thinking," Joyner Principal
Gilbert Gutierrez said. "The hard part is defining it. What does it look like
in kindergarten?"
Here is what it looks like at Joyner. Instead of just asking kids to identify
characters or answer questions to show they understood a story,
teachers draw swooping black arcs on posters to follow the drama of a
story — conflict, climax and resolution — and help kids tease out big
ideas from all the details.
Before, "we didn't discuss the ideas that come from these stories," said
Wendy Gillespie, who teaches second grade at Torrey Pines. "I don't
know that we even really talked about them except on an emotional level.
‘Wasn't Cinderella brave? Wasn't that sister mean? How did it make you
feel?' "
Teachers spend less time talking and telling and more time listening and
coaxing. They push students to go beyond a simple word like "mad" to
sort out more complicated ideas like "frustrated" or "controlling." Even
kindergartners are urged to find the main idea in a story. And while
teachers help kids name the abstract ideas they're describing, teachers
don't come up with the ideas themselves.
"The teacher is just holding the pen," said Noemi Vizcarra, a resource
teacher at Joyner.
First graders follow one arc from a story about a lightning bug that
includes the detail, "Leo will keep trying to make a light and not give up."
A bright arrow veers off to declare he was "determined." The idea is to
take kids beyond the tiny details to see the concepts they illustrate, from
heroism to resilience.
In one class at Joyner, third graders chewed the ends of their pencils,
trying to dissect a short story. "I think the turning point was when her
stepmom knew how she felt," one boy offered up. The six children
conferred about how to describe the way the little girl in the story felt.
Someone said "sad."
"We can't just use happy or sad!" another boy insisted. Vizcarra has
even heard older kids reminding each other to move beyond literal
thinking to inference or interpretation.
When they get to fifth grade, kids at these two schools take the next step
beyond understanding the themes and message in a story to debating
whether they agree and lining up evidence. At Torrey Pines, fifth graders
pen complex reports like "Urban Sprawl: a Multifaceted Controversy."
"I didn't do anything like that until I was in high school or college!" Torrey
Pines Principal Jim Solo exclaimed.
While both schools have fared well on state tests, outscoring schools with
similar challenges or advantages, both complain the tests don't measure
some of the advanced skills they're teaching. Fifth-grade teachers at
Joyner hunkered down together with sample questions for the looming
state test.
"No. 2 is ‘What's the main problem?' They'll nail that. It's conflict," said
teacher Tim Marking as they paged through the questions. Another
question that asked students to suss out a theme made him scoff. "That's
an advanced question? Are you joking? For our school, that's not
advanced."
But other questions could throw their kids a curveball. Marking groaned
over a question that asked students why a writer had mentioned creaking
stairs in a story. The right answer was the house had held several
generations. Teachers feared kids would instead answer the house
needed to be fixed.
"It feels like they're trying to trip people up," Vizcarra lamented. "We've
been teaching them to think all along. Now it's about, ‘How do we look
past all these little tricks on the test?' "
Those worries might be eased if the tests change. A national push to
deepen thinking has led states to sign up for new, shared standards: the
skills that kids should master each year. While California is often lauded
for having unusually good standards, the new list would be shorter,
allowing schools to delve deeper than they do now. That, in turn, will lead
to new tests to measure deeper skills.
"For a long time we've believed you just can't measure this stuff," said
Michael Kamil, an education professor at Stanford University. "Well,
unless you set forth the goal, you never get there."
That state shift is still years away. As testing season swirled around them,
teachers at Joyner and Torrey Pines said it was a battle to keep focusing
on critical thinking. In the days leading up to the test, principals
sometimes struggled to find examples of it in classes as teachers turned
to test prep.
"We have a million measures of fluency. We have a million measures of
spelling," Montali said. "We need a measure of their thinking."
May 4, 2011
by Emily Alpert
"The Rainbow Fish" is a beautiful tale: A shimmering fish gives away its
glittery scales one by one to befriend others. It's often seen as a parable
about sharing and selfishness.
But one kid at Torrey Pines Elementary pointed out in an essay that
there was something fishy about it.
"The adult writers did not realize that they were teaching kids an immoral
way to make friends," the fifth grader wrote of "The Rainbow Fish" and
two other books. The child said giving someone a gift the way the fish did
might strengthen a bond of friendship, but couldn't actually create one.
Such sophisticated arguments might not seem so surprising at Torrey
Pines, perched on all-but-oceanfront real estate in La Jolla. But across
town in the refugee hub of City Heights, Joyner Elementary is doing just
the same thing with classes of poor children still mastering English.
These two dramatically different schools are prodding kids to think
deeper and analyze texts, instead of just understanding the words. They
are trying to take critical thinking — a skill usually associated with college
seminars and Plato — all the way down to elementary school and "The
Rainbow Fish."
The San Diego Unified school board has enshrined critical thinking as
one of its reform goals, principles rooted in the idea that schools can
come up with their own ways to improve themselves. But San Diego
Unified is also setting out ideals that it wants schools to strive for, like
fostering deeper thinking.
It mirrors a national push to deepen lessons so that kids learn to
synthesize and evaluate information, crafting their own arguments and
debunking others. Deputy Superintendent Nellie Meyer called it "an
expansion of the definition of success beyond the standardized cookie-
cutter model."
"We're preparing them for a world where they can easily have access to
information via Google," said Michelle Nieto, a literacy teacher who helps
Torrey Pines. "They need to know what to do with all that information.
How do you make meaning of it?"
Joyner and Torrey Pines aren't testing out these reforms because the
school board said so. They've used these strategies for years, working
with two educators, Nieto and Michelle Montali, who they dub "the
Michelles." Nieto used to work at Joyner; both now work part-time at
Torrey Pines.
Their consulting business brings the same training to teachers from
Sacramento County to Coronado. At Torrey Pines, it was a quest to
challenge kids who came to kindergarten already reading. Joyner wanted
to ensure English learners didn't decode words without understanding.
What is new is that the school district has started urging other schools to
visit and see what they're doing. That means that Joyner and Torrey
Pines could become a blueprint for how to ramp up critical thinking in San
Diego Unified, an appealing idea that can be slippery for educators and
parents to actually pin down — and sometimes difficult to juggle with the
demands of state tests.
"Every school thinks they're teaching critical thinking," Joyner Principal
Gilbert Gutierrez said. "The hard part is defining it. What does it look like
in kindergarten?"
Here is what it looks like at Joyner. Instead of just asking kids to identify
characters or answer questions to show they understood a story,
teachers draw swooping black arcs on posters to follow the drama of a
story — conflict, climax and resolution — and help kids tease out big
ideas from all the details.
Before, "we didn't discuss the ideas that come from these stories," said
Wendy Gillespie, who teaches second grade at Torrey Pines. "I don't
know that we even really talked about them except on an emotional level.
‘Wasn't Cinderella brave? Wasn't that sister mean? How did it make you
feel?' "
Teachers spend less time talking and telling and more time listening and
coaxing. They push students to go beyond a simple word like "mad" to
sort out more complicated ideas like "frustrated" or "controlling." Even
kindergartners are urged to find the main idea in a story. And while
teachers help kids name the abstract ideas they're describing, teachers
don't come up with the ideas themselves.
"The teacher is just holding the pen," said Noemi Vizcarra, a resource
teacher at Joyner.
First graders follow one arc from a story about a lightning bug that
includes the detail, "Leo will keep trying to make a light and not give up."
A bright arrow veers off to declare he was "determined." The idea is to
take kids beyond the tiny details to see the concepts they illustrate, from
heroism to resilience.
In one class at Joyner, third graders chewed the ends of their pencils,
trying to dissect a short story. "I think the turning point was when her
stepmom knew how she felt," one boy offered up. The six children
conferred about how to describe the way the little girl in the story felt.
Someone said "sad."
"We can't just use happy or sad!" another boy insisted. Vizcarra has
even heard older kids reminding each other to move beyond literal
thinking to inference or interpretation.
When they get to fifth grade, kids at these two schools take the next step
beyond understanding the themes and message in a story to debating
whether they agree and lining up evidence. At Torrey Pines, fifth graders
pen complex reports like "Urban Sprawl: a Multifaceted Controversy."
"I didn't do anything like that until I was in high school or college!" Torrey
Pines Principal Jim Solo exclaimed.
While both schools have fared well on state tests, outscoring schools with
similar challenges or advantages, both complain the tests don't measure
some of the advanced skills they're teaching. Fifth-grade teachers at
Joyner hunkered down together with sample questions for the looming
state test.
"No. 2 is ‘What's the main problem?' They'll nail that. It's conflict," said
teacher Tim Marking as they paged through the questions. Another
question that asked students to suss out a theme made him scoff. "That's
an advanced question? Are you joking? For our school, that's not
advanced."
But other questions could throw their kids a curveball. Marking groaned
over a question that asked students why a writer had mentioned creaking
stairs in a story. The right answer was the house had held several
generations. Teachers feared kids would instead answer the house
needed to be fixed.
"It feels like they're trying to trip people up," Vizcarra lamented. "We've
been teaching them to think all along. Now it's about, ‘How do we look
past all these little tricks on the test?' "
Those worries might be eased if the tests change. A national push to
deepen thinking has led states to sign up for new, shared standards: the
skills that kids should master each year. While California is often lauded
for having unusually good standards, the new list would be shorter,
allowing schools to delve deeper than they do now. That, in turn, will lead
to new tests to measure deeper skills.
"For a long time we've believed you just can't measure this stuff," said
Michael Kamil, an education professor at Stanford University. "Well,
unless you set forth the goal, you never get there."
That state shift is still years away. As testing season swirled around them,
teachers at Joyner and Torrey Pines said it was a battle to keep focusing
on critical thinking. In the days leading up to the test, principals
sometimes struggled to find examples of it in classes as teachers turned
to test prep.
"We have a million measures of fluency. We have a million measures of
spelling," Montali said. "We need a measure of their thinking."
San Diego
Education Report
Education Report