Assuming Too Much or Too Little?

Oftentimes, I hear my colleagues talk about how little students seem to know. They complain about how little students are able to retain. The bottom line: They are complaining about how little content knowledge students have and retain. Is content knowledge important? Does it have anything to do with making students college- and career-ready?



The answer to both questions is yes. According to E.D. Hirsch, Jr., content knowledge is essential to understanding a text. Since the 1980s, Hirsch has been advocating the necessity of having content knowledge. In Cultural Literacy, Hirsch and his colleagues provide a very detailed list of basic cultural knowledge students must possess to be proficient readers of Literature, etc. More recently, in The Knowledge Deficit, Hirsch outlines the loss that students suffer from not gaining content knowledge. According to an international study of productivity in schools, US schools are one of the least productive in the world; our students decline 38 normalized points in reading achievement (Hirsch, 2006, p. 82).



By comparison, Hirsch's schools-Core Knowledge Schools-offer an alternative curriculum to the traditional American public schools. In Core Knowledge Schools, teachers follow a set K-8 cultural literacy curriculum. Despite the many critics (more on this in a second), these schools show a remarkable, steady rate of achievement from Grade 4 to Grade 6; meanwhile, the traditional schools show a higher starting point, but a stagnant trend over time. Perhaps teachers aren't too far off when they feel that students seem to have the same knowledge gaps year-to-year. Core Knowledge Schools seem to know how to be efficient; students start at around a 640 on the Stanford 9 in the sixth grade and they end somewhere around a 710 (Hirsch, 2006, p. 90).



So, who would oppose such success? Educators who identify themselves as "naturalists" or "formalists" or just those who think learning "just facts" is a waste of time. Naturalists believe that learning is a natural process. This theory is just not true. People are naturally curious, but they are not naturally good thinkers (Willingham, 2010). Cognitive scientists have shown that engaging interest is easy, but promoting thought is hard. Formalists believe that once students know the forms of learning, they can learn anything if presented in the preferred form. What will students learn? Without the purpose and direction of a learning goal in mind, thinking critically can be very difficult. (Some writers, like the late David Foster Wallace, could literally critically think about anything. I don't think everyone is quite so talented.)



We need information because our brains are built of schema. These schema are built of information. The more schema, the more quickly we can read and assimilate a new text (Hirsch, 1988). Teaching students information is not useless; teaching students information is an efficient and constructive use of time.



This idea leads me to the next consideration in preparing a college- and career-ready students. How can teachers present a series of regimented information pieces without giving up their autonomy in the classroom? My home county has been trying to develop a new evaluation protocol intended to bring administrators into the classroom. Instead, we've been getting a narrow interpretation of The Skillful Teacher masquerading as an evaluation system. I believe that we are being placed in the position of teaching with the "pedagogy of direct command and absolute control" (Kozol, 2005, p. 64). In Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol recounts the efforts of a program called "Success for All." This system seeks to create "the establishment of 'faultless communication' between the 'the teacher, who is the stimulus,' and 'the students, who respond'" (Hirsch, 2005, p. 64).


This monotonous give-and-take is what all good teachers fear will be implemented in their classrooms at any moment. Regimentation and a lack of flexibility do nothing to help students gain the knowledge and understanding they need for college; however, learning is not something that can be held up as though it were some type of new Apple gadget you must have in order to be tragically hip and cool-you know...like Justin Long.



What needs to be done is for us to remember that content knowledge is not just mere facts. Teachers should have deep content knowledge of their subject area in order to be the most effective. They cannot be in charge of the dynamic energy of a classroom if they must grasp for straws whenever they are asked an insightful question.

Teachers also need to be given the flexibility to achieve results on all levels. Massie Risch, Deputy Assistant Secretary for External Affairs and Outreach at the US DOE, said it best on Advocacy Day: "We are looking to tighten up on the goals and increase flexibility in how you get there." Students need the hard and fast learning goals that show them and us that they are learning; however, the strict order described in Kozol's book only helps to deaden a student's approach to the content. The monotony of teacher give, student take only makes education look like mechanical schooling. If teachers are no more than purveyors of information that students are to assimilate, then teachers need not be in the classroom and TVs and computers can take their places. But, if students are more than empty vessels, they need living, knowledgeable, and dynamic people who can and will challenge them to be the best people they can be, regardless of how they reach that goal.

Boogiemen, Administrators, and Other Make-Believe Monsters: Problems in Power Dynamics in Publilc Schools

Editorial Note: Before I begin, I just need to take a moment and be very clear about what I believe. I believe that teachers and administrators have a duty to themselves and their students to do the best they can to make their schools the best. Occasionally, that means having to work against one another, but it should mean that more often, they work together; however, I have noticed a disheartening trend in today's schools. More and more, I am seeing teachers who are afraid to put themselves out there, be upfront, and stand up for what is right. This post is made in the spirit of bridging the gap of mistrust and paranoia that seems to widening between administrators and teachers, especially in this day and age of declining resources. Together, we can teach; alone, we will fail.

I have been in many different school systems considering the number of years I have taught. In one of the schools, a Principal Intern made the unfortunate following statement:

“If I am not careful, [Name of the Principal] is going to demote me to teacher.”

What made this statement so profoundly ridiculous was that the Principal Intern made it to a library full of teachers on the first day of the first workweek of the year. OOPS. Most importantly, why do people swarm to every mistake administrators make? I seem to remember a story about not casting the first stone. When can teachers and administrators come together and agree on what responsibilities they will share and which are separate? When will teachers become content experts and administrators become the show runners? But, most of all, when will the two groups learn to trust each other for the benefit of the school.

People from that school still refer to that incident and still quote that line. Thinking about those words got me to thinking about the dynamics of power in a public school. Who is “in charge”? Is it that simple?

I do not believe it is. Schools are not simple hierarchies. In the last posting, I made reference to Bernstein’s three rule sets. One of those rule sets, hierarchical rules, is put in place to teach children where they belong, to help them learn their “place.” If that sounds distasteful, then it is right. American society cannot be built upon hierarchies because we all are all “equal in the eyes of the law.” Yet, we have hierarchies in much of our society. At work, we have the relationships between the employees and the various managers. At home, we encounter people of different economic classes. In schools, among students, status can be as simple as a swoosh. Are these separations actually a part of society, or are they engendered in people through schools? I think the answer may surprise you.

Are administrators of a higher rank than teachers? Rather, are apples better than oranges? Teachers are not administrators. Administrators are not teachers, regardless of what the original intention behind the name principal might be. Principal and Assistant Principal are just shorthand for in-house bureaucrat. They are responsible for discipline, for evaluating teachers, for gathering data, and for implementing policy. Seems like a lot of responsibility and knowledge for a position that can be filled by someone without a doctoral degree. How could someone with just a master’s degree have a full knowledge of the standards and content for each subject area?

The point is administrators and teachers are not even in the same professional sphere. One’s job is political and legislative, while the other’s job is about content and students. I have seen so many decisions, more than are necessary, that have been made to the detriment of the students at any of the schools in which I’ve taught. Why were these decisions made? Administrators were given the “authority” to make them and teachers assumed that authority was absolute. Principals, like teachers, are employees of the local school board, not the individual administrators. While their evaluations are important to the reissue of annual contracts, they are not the people who sign the contracts. Part of those very contracts asks us to be advocates for our students. What type of advocates are we if we give into the hierarchical rules of school and let ourselves be subject to the will of people no longer connected to those for whom they make decisions. As Cassius once said, the fault is in ourselves.

Do not make the mistake of interpreting my disregard for the “chain of command” as a call for all out insurrection; I assure you that a rebellion is not the way to solve this problem. In The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire discusses the nature of all oppressive relationships and how, if they are to be salvaged, they must end. The oppression of one group by another results in the “dehumanization” of the other. I’ve heard people call teaching a “calling”; what else is oppression if not the barring of someone from the thing they feel called to do? If consciously making decisions that negatively affect the students we teach, even when there are alternatives that would be less harmful, is not an oppressive decision, what else is? Budgetary constraints are fairly universal right now. That is the reason why having administrative personnel filling half-time positions and earning six figure salaries is particularly baffling. These are the moments when teachers must step up and open a dialogue with administrators at all levels. The oppressed cannot become the oppressors; this only makes matters worse (Freire, 2006, p. 44). We can open an honest dialogue and do what is best for our systems and our students.

Opening a dialogue may not be too easy. How long have teachers been hiding behind the mask of “job security” when they should have been defending their students? I don’t know nor can I find out. All I know is that a study done by Richard Ingersoll of the Department of Education’s Schools and Staffing Survey and the Teacher Follow-up Survey says that this adversarial relationship has been going on long enough to truly affect others (Ingersoll, 2003). After researching the results of the survey, Ingersoll collated a list of the top reasons for teacher dissatisfaction. He then ordered that list from most dissatisfying to least dissatisfying. The first reason is the usual, poor salary; however, the second most common reason for teacher dissatisfaction is “poor administrative support” (p. 169), or “lack of recognition and support from administration; lack of resources and material/equipment for your classroom; inadequate support from administration” (p. 169). This on its own is not surprising, but it is not alone on the list. The fourth most common reason for teacher dissatisfaction is “lack of faculty influence and autonomy” (p. 169), or “lack of influence over school policies and practices; lack of control over own classroom” (p. 169). What is oppression on the job if not lack of respect, support, and autonomy? These complaints are widespread enough to be the second and fourth most common reasons for teacher dissatisfaction; furthermore, it may not be too much of a stretch to connect poor salary with lack of respect for faculty.

Who is the higher-up and who is the underling? Is there such a thing as a chain of command in public schools? Is that the right question? I don’t think so. The right question is how long are we going to pretend that there should be a chain of command as opposed to a cooperative effort? People always seemed shocked when I get clearance to try new pedagogies and new class arrangements. I question, I demand, and I explain in an effort to serve my students better and I’ve yet to find an administrator myopic enough not give any ideas a try. I cited it before and I will cite it again, perhaps the reason for our status is in us, not the administrators.

I encourage those of you who believe that becoming an administrator is a promotion to be happy where you are first. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that administration is a step up from teaching because you become the very problem that made you unhappy in the first place. In a democratic society, all people should have a voice; John Dewey said that the schools were the great laboratories of democracy. Thus, schools should be the place where all different types of people with all different types of skills should be allowed to do their best to make students successful, not a place where people feel like they are not allowed to grow and become the best they can. Next time you feel downtrodden, put upon, or just plain overwhelmed, try and find out why. If the reason you are upset is administrative, don’t just complain, open a dialogue.

Note: Anyone who wishes to get full bibliographic information for any sources used in this or any other posting can send an e-mail to MorganWriter612@gmail.com.

A Parent's Big Questions about Education, Part 1

Recently, a concerned parent, Nanci, emailed me some questions she has about her children’s schools. She wants a teacher’s perspective before she pursues her concerns; I’ve addressed the first of her questions here rather than simply emailing her back because I certainly can’t speak for all of education or all teachers. Feel free to chime in!

Why is teaching the one profession where a brand new person is put in charge of 100+ people with little to no assimilation training and -- more importantly -- little top-down evaluation?

I don’t think many other professions put as little money towards their new people as education. The career of teaching has grown more challenging over the past fifteen to twenty years, and the management structure for supporting—or assimilating—new teachers has not changed adequately to meet the new challenges. Student teaching is the primary training, and for a long time, that six month to one year long, unpaid internship seemed sufficient. (In fact, the student teacher pays the college for the experience.) I’m not familiar with a program that pays teachers without designating them a full teaching load. School budgets just don’t seem structured for that kind of investment in workforce. Many districts are responding to the current recession by cutting the arts and increasing class sizes, so a program that paid new teachers modestly while they mastered their craft would probably be the first to go anyway.

After student teaching and graduation, most new teachers are paired with a mentor once they begin teaching. These mentors, for the most part, are fellow teachers with a full teaching load. I’ve seen programs where mentors receive no additional pay and no reduced teaching load for this role; I’ve also seen programs where mentors have three to five new teachers and receive a $500 stipend for the year. Some schools may provide substitute money so that a mentor can take a day from his or her own classes to observe a new teacher, but how much support a mentor provides will vary greatly by the individual. Also, if the new teacher is a coach or has other extra-curricular responsibilities (as many untenured teachers do), he or she may not be available after school for help. Few mentors want a phone call at 9 p.m. (when many of us planned our lessons that first year) when the mentors aren’t receiving a reduced teaching load or financial compensation for the task. Scheduling conflicts can stagnate many mentor relationships.

In addition to mentors, most schools, because of No Child Left Behind requirements, have school or district-wide training for new teachers after school or on in-service days. I’ve seen good mentors and bad mentors. I’ve seen hiring years where so many new teachers start in one year that even the good mentors have very little time left to offer. School budgets and structure have not responded to the fact that student teaching does not prepare people to the extent it may have at one time. This organizational problem creates a high rate of new teacher turnover, which wears out dedicated mentors, too! One strategy for a parent concerned about a struggling new teacher may be to go to the principal and ask who is supporting this new teacher. By saying, “Gosh, I think Mr. or Ms. So-and-So really needs some more support from what I’m seeing with my child. Who is his/her mentor?” This approach suggests that administration needs to support new teachers, and the concerned parents can seek to contribute questions and issues through that support program. If there isn’t a support program for that new teacher, parents might start to demand that one be put in place…

Most schools utilize lots of top-down evaluation on new teachers. In one school district I worked, I was formally observed every six weeks and informally observed on a weekly basis. My department chair signed my lesson plan book every two weeks for the first year. In education, the problem isn’t the observation and evaluation of new teachers; the problem is that there isn’t really a structure in place to do more than record the problem. Qualified teachers, especially in math or science, aren’t waiting to be called in mid-year to replace a struggling new teacher. If a new teacher has big problems, I can guarantee that the department chair and the front office know about it. It becomes a triage situation, including documentation of the problem and a record of mentoring (see above). Most schools just try to get the new teacher through that first year. However, this strategy does little to help students who have that teacher for that year. If the teacher gets fired for bad teaching in say, February, who will pick up those classes, especially if state testing happens in the spring? Schools cannot afford to have a substitute who may not be a certified teacher preparing students for a state exam.

I realize, Nanci, that I haven’t been very hopeful here. Essentially, I think education needs to restructure its relationship with new teachers, which will take money and community dedication. I can’t say I see that on the horizon, either. In the meantime, we teachers try to help each other as best we can in passing time between classes.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Teaching with Good Principals

One of my goals as a blogger is to create spin. Yes, spin. I hope to do so in a savvy, positive way rather than an obviously-indulges-herself-in-false-logic kind of way. Negativity and education can seem inextricable when we look around, whether we look in the newspaper, around the cocktail party or in the faculty room. In many schools’ cultures, there lives an “us versus them” attitude between teachers and administrators. “They” get paid more. “They” wanted out of the classroom. “They” don’t have to deal with what teachers deal with anymore. That may be true, but administrators also deal with stuff I don’t think about: Is the boiler at the right temperature? Will the union call for a strike? Did the booster parents stop arguing with the PTA parents? Are all the buses here? Newsweek’s “The Principal Principle” by Barbara Kantrowitz and Jay Mathews actually moved me to tears as I read its profiles of great principals around the country. So often in my classroom, I felt alone and anonymous, swamped by papers and student needs I didn’t know how to address. At times, I felt measured only by my students’ grades and scores. Often, my 150 or so students created more variables than I knew how to manage. Administrators deal with these same issues, at a much higher volume.

Good administrators put themselves between teachers and problems. Good administrators may not have a peer within the building. Good administrators ensure the safety and integrity of the school as a system. Good administrators have to pretend to like many more people than I have to as a teacher! Give me a minute to climb off my soapbox. Okay. Listen, I teach, but in the time I’ve been teaching, some of my teacher friends have climbed over the wall into the front office. I already know they’re good folk. I already trust them. The politics of many work places asks us to take sides, and when I was new, several factions sought to win my loyalty. Heck, several factions will always seek loyalty. Happiness as a teacher, however, stems from empathy not only for students, but for all the people within our system, which includes administrators. I’ve grown happier as a teacher since I’ve let go of thinking that no one who left the classroom can care about the classroom as much as I do. Just like I believe my students possess a variety of talents, I realize educators come in the micro-vision and macro-vision versions. My teacher blessing for all teachers out there: May your body feel rested, your mind feel at peace, and may your building be managed by excellent administration. Without their foundation, we’d get much less done…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher