Would you buy a house or a car that simply met standards? It's ugly, it
rattles, but it meets all applicable state and federal standards. That
doesn't imply that we shouldn't have standards. It doesn't imply we
shouldn't verify conformity with standards. But aspiring to meet basic
standards is a lowly goal. Going far enough beyond standards that people
sit up and say, "Now this is nice!" is what it is needed. Now there's no
unique definition of "nice". But most people know it when they see it. I
don't know whether offering a letter of recommendation, exemption from
taking the final, or a cash prize would be more motivating. Perhaps
letting the students define their own prize with you remaining the sole
judge and arbiter of winning would motivate more than a few.
----------
> From: BETH HENTGES <b.hentges@cctc.cc.mn.us>
> To: mathedcc@archives.math.utk.edu; vkays@RICHLAND.CC.IL.US
> Subject: [MATHEDCC] Getting Back to Basics
> Date: Monday, October 25, 1999 09:31
>
> The author of this essay has confused standards based education with
> requiring students to score higher on standardized basic skills tests.
>
> Standards based instruction uses the latest information from cognitive
> science regarding active learning, etc. Standards based instruction is
> NOT a back to the basics (and teach only the basic skills) movement.
>
> Pay close attention to the rhetoric used by various groups as they
> voice their opinions about what mathematics educations should or should
> not be.
>
>
> >>> Vern Kays <vkays@RICHLAND.CC.IL.US> 10/23 4:57 PM >>>
> Interesting reading
>
> >X-Sender: jbecker@saluki-mail.siu.edu
> >Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 14:58:05 -0500
> >To: jbecker@siu.edu
> >From: Jerry Becker <jbecker@siu.edu>
> >Subject: Getting Back to Basics
> >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by
> mail.richland.cc.il.us id OAA14488
> >
> >******************************************************
> >Thanks for Carol Fry Bohlin for bringing this article to our
> attention.
> >******************************************************
> >
> >>From The Washington Post, Sunday, October 10, 1999; Page B03
> >[See
>
>http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-10/10/131l-101099-idx.h
>
> tml ]
> >
> >Getting Back to Basics
> >
> >First Lesson: Unlearn How We Learned
> >
> >By Alfie Kohn
> >
> >We are facing an educational emergency in this country. You've heard
> that
> >claim before, of course, but this time there's a twist: Much of the
> current
> >crisis is the result of policies enacted in the name of improving
> >schools--specifically, in the name of "standards" and
> "accountability."
> >
> >Naturally, this rhetoric finds a ready audience: Who wants to come
> out
> >against higher standards? But the dirty little secret of American
> education
> >in the late 1990s is that real learning is being squeezed out of
> classrooms
> >because people who don't know much about education have decided it's
> time
> >to get tough.
> >
> >The top-down, heavy-handed "Tougher Standards" movement has
> essentially
> >taken over many of our schools, with the full support of business
> groups,
> >politicians of both parties and many journalists. The primary
> opposition
> >comes from those who actually do the educating--and, as our
> children's
> >schools are transformed into giant test-prep centers, increasingly
> from
> >parents as well.
> >
> >The first problem is that raising standards has come to mean little
> more
> >than higher scores on poorly designed standardized tests. The more
> schools
> >commit themselves to improving performance on these tests, the more
> >meaningful opportunities to learn are sacrificed. Every hour spent
> drilling
> >students to ace these exams is an hour not spent helping them become
> >creative, critical, curious learners. Thus, the drive for high scores
> is
> >tantamount to lowering standards--a paradox rarely appreciated by
> those who
> >make, or report on, education policy.
> >
> >Children are tested to the point of absurdity in the name of
> >"accountability," which often turns out to be a code word for more
> control
> >over what happens in classrooms by people who are not in classrooms.
> This
> >has an effect on learning similar to the effect that a noose has on
> >breathing. Particularly counterproductive is the use of bribes and
> threats
> >to coerce schools and students into raising test scores, including
> >"high-stakes" testing that determines whether students can graduate or
> even
> >move on to the next grade.
> >
> >A few years back, a group of Colorado researchers asked some teachers
> to
> >instruct their students on a specific task. About half the teachers
> were
> >told that when they were finished, their students must "perform up to
> >standards" and do well on a test about the task. The rest of the
> teachers,
> >given the identical task to teach, were simply invited to "facilitate
> the
> >children's learning." At the end, when all the students were tested,
> the
> >students in the "standards" classrooms did worse on the task than the
> other
> >students.
> >
> >The teachers in the standards-oriented classrooms in effect became
> drill
> >sergeants, removing virtually any opportunity for the students to play
> an
> >active role in designing their own learning. The teachers were
> controlled,
> >and they responded by becoming controlling.
> >
> >This transformation is taking place across the country. One example
> can
> >stand for thousands: A widely respected middle-school teacher in
> Wisconsin,
> >famous for helping students create their own innovative learning
> projects,
> >stood up at a community meeting one evening and announced that he
> "used to
> >be" a good teacher. These days, he explained, he just handed out
> textbooks
> >and quizzed his students on what they had memorized. He had changed
> his
> >teaching approach because he was increasingly being held accountable
> for
> >test scores. The kind of wide-ranging and enthusiastic exploration of
> ideas
> >that once characterized his classroom could not survive when the
> emphasis
> >was on preparing students to take a standardized test.
> >
> >The consensus that we need tougher standards is closely connected to
> the
> >notion that we need to go back to basics--what might be called the
> "bunch
> >o' facts" model of instruction. Traditionalists typically believe we
> can
> >make students learn by the sheer force of didactic instruction, by
> having
> >the teacher stand at the front of the room, perhaps writing on the
> >blackboard while disgorging information that everyone else in the room
> is
> >supposed to lap up and copy down. The teacher tells; the students
> listen.
> >And when they aren't listening, they're reading things like textbooks
> in
> >such a way as to absorb information. Then come the quizzes,
> compulsory
> >recitations and other ways of proving that they remember what they
> were
> >told.
> >
> >Here education is conceived as transferring or transmitting facts,
> pouring
> >knowledge into empty vessels. This transmission model is found in
> first
> >grade classrooms devoted to the explicit teaching of phonics and in
> high
> >school honors classes where teachers slap transparencies on the
> overhead
> >projector and lecture endlessly about Romantic poets or genetic codes.
> As a
> >rule, the more that standardized tests are used (and their results
> >emphasized), the more we would expect schools to adopt this approach
> to
> >teaching students of all ages.
> >
> >This model, which remains the dominant one in the United States,
> enjoys the
> >advantage of being familiar to most of us from our own days in school.
> If
> >most parents accept it--and judge teachers and schools on the basis of
> how
> >efficiently information is poured into their children--it may be
> because no
> >one has ever invited them to reconsider it. For us to question the
> reliance
> >on lectures, work sheets, drills and memorization, we must confront
> the
> >possibility that we spent a good chunk of our childhoods doing stuff
> that
> >was exactly as pointless as we suspected it was at the time.
> >
> >But cognitive scientists tell us that we're not passive receptacles,
> and
> >learning isn't just a matter of heaping new information on top of the
> >knowledge we already have. It is a matter of coming across something
> >unexpected, something that can't easily be explained by the informal
> >theories we have already developed. To resolve that conflict, we have
> to
> >reorganize our way of understanding so we can accommodate the new
> reality
> >we've just encountered.
> >
> >The best kind of teaching takes its cue from the understanding that
> people
> >are active learners. In such a classroom, students are constantly
> making
> >decisions, becoming participants in their own education. Each is part
> of a
> >community of learners, coming to understand ideas from the inside out
> with
> >one another's help. They still acquire facts and skills, but in a
> context
> >and for a purpose. Their questions drive the curriculum. Learning to
> think
> >like scientists and historians matters more than memorizing lists of
> >definitions and dates.
> >
> >It's simply not true that one must learn to read before being able to
> read
> >for understanding; it makes a lot more sense to learn to read by
> reading
> >for understanding. Exactly the same may be said of math: Wise
> educators
> >don't teach addition and subtraction as prerequisites for pursuing
> >interesting problems; they teach these skills through interesting
> problems.
> >Students--including disadvantaged and "at-risk" students--learn skills
> most
> >effectively if they're invited from the beginning to think in a
> >sophisticated way about the underlying concepts.
> >
> >Unfortunately, that kind of instruction is rare, and we are paying
> the
> >price. Many newspapers carried big headlines last year when U.S. high
> >schoolers proved significantly less adept at math than their
> counterparts
> >around the globe. Less attention was given to the researchers'
> conclusion
> >that our students are at a disadvantage precisely because of the
> prevalence
> >of back-to-basics ideology in this country. American classrooms are
> devoted
> >more to memorizing and practicing rules and skills, at the expense of
> >helping students understand what they're doing.
> >
> >Consider the way many 13-year-old American students dealt with a
> problem
> >that appeared in the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The
> >question was: "An army bus holds 36 soldiers. If 1,128 soldiers are
> being
> >bused to their training site, how many buses are needed?" If you
> divide
> >1,128 by 36, you get 31 with a remainder of 12, meaning it would take
> 32
> >buses to transport the soldiers. Most students did the division
> correctly,
> >but fewer than one out of four got the question right. The most
> common
> >answer was "31 remainder 12."
> >
> >The shrill calls for tougher standards have had the effect of
> accelerating
> >the kind of instruction that produces this sort of robotic
> calculation.
> >False claims about new math and the whole-language reading approach
> have
> >driven out progressive kinds of teaching that help students become
> better
> >thinkers--and lifelong learners. Also, the most impressive kind of
> >instruction is very difficult to sustain when a central authority
> decrees a
> >list of disconnected (and soon-to-be-forgotten) stuff that every
> third- or
> >seventh- or 11th-grader is required to know. That's why one of the
> chief
> >consequences of the Tougher Standards movement is that some of the
> best
> >teachers and principals are getting tired--or fired.
> >
> >The mindless phrase "raising the bar" is based on the assumption that
> >harder is always better--indeed, that the difficulty level of tests
> or
> >texts is the most important criterion by which to judge them. A
> growing
> >understanding of the limits of this sensibility helps to explain why
> a
> >group of Virginia parents has organized in opposition to the Standards
> of
> >Learning being rammed into that state's classrooms. It's why some
> >educators, students and parents across the country are beginning to
> >consider the possibility of boycotting standardized tests.
> >
> >The goal here is not to make school "fun" so much as it is to create
> a
> >learning experience that arouses and sustains children's curiosity,
> >enriching their capacities and responding to their questions in ways
> that
> >are deeply engaging. Those who share that goal are likely to work to
> >support schooling that is profoundly nontraditional--and of
> astonishingly
> >higher standards.
> >-----------
> >Alfie Kohn is the author of the just-published "The Schools Our
> Children
> >Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and 'Tougher
> Standards.'"
> >(Houghton Mifflin).
> >-----------
> >* Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
> >******************************************************
> >
> >Similar articles by Alfie Kohn that have appeared recently:
> >
> >Why Students Lose When "Tougher Standards" Win A Conversation with
> Alfie Kohn
> >by John O'Neil and Carol Tell
> >
> >Source: Educational Leadership Sept., 1999, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 18-23
> >--------------
> >Confusing Harder With Better
> >
> >Source: Education Week, 15 September 1999 (p. 68)
> >
> >**************************************************************
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