Death of the Novel in the Classroom?

Most can remember the slew of novels that were required reading during high school—Wuthering Heights, A Brave New World and All Quiet on the Western Front are just a few commonly assigned titles I recall reading. But with standardized assessments and NCLB, are novels on their way out of the classroom?

Laura Hamilton, of the RAND Corporation, addressed this topic at a November 20 forum on standardized assessments hosted by the Center on Education Policy. According to Hamilton, more and more teachers are assigning short passages to their students to read because this is how reading is tested on most assessments under NCLB. Instead of assigning novels to students and having them write essays on what they read, educators are having the students read short passages and answer multiple-choice questions or, in essence, teaching to the test.

The pressures associated with achieving high assessment scores may have put some of these educators in a position where they see no need to incorporate novels into their curriculum. But if students only read short passages, then that is what they will become accustomed to, and some may not even comprehend why it is important to read a full-length book.

Are novels assigned less frequently than in the past in your school system? How do you think assigning short passages instead of full-length novels will affect students, and do you think assessments have killed the novel in the classroom?

Bryk Decries Dearth of Research

Anthony S. Bryk, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, spoke at the American Enterprise Institute on November 19 about the future of education research.

Changes in the economy, technology, and society will directly influence public education, and Bryk advocated for dedicating more resources to research and development to help understand these effects. He presented a plan called Design, Educational Engineering, and Development (D-EE-D), which pushes for schools to approach education research in the same manner as the commercial sector—with a big commitment of resources and focus on embracing innovations that can be directly tested and refined at the school level.

Currently, only 0.25 percent of the U.S. education budget goes to research and development, and that's far too small a sum, in Bryk's opinion, to enable a research-driven transformation in the way we train teachers, develop materials, and run schools.

Should we be spending more on research and development? Do schools make good use of existing education research?

Preschoolers Benefit from Content & Character Ed.

A major study of Head Start programs in Pennsylvania shows that preschoolers benefit from learning social skills in addition to literacy and numeracy skills. Although, in recent years, there's been a push for more academic content in preschool, researchers call the important social aspects of early learning the engine that drives "the desire and motivation for learning."

In the study, preschoolers who received enriched lessons—those that taught skills like problem solving, self-control, and focus in addition to academic content—scored higher on both social and academic school readiness tests.

The study appears in the November/December issue of Child Development and also includes advice for positive behavior interventions.

Education Fifth on Obama's List

In a recent op-ed, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof takes issue with indications that education is not the president-elect's top concern. Kristof writes, "He ranked it fifth among his priorities, and if it is being downplayed, that's a mistake."

Kristof, like ASCD and many in the education field, sees improving the U.S. school system as key to addressing the economy and other issues facing the country. In his November Is It Good for the Kids? column, ASCD Executive Director Gene Carter discusses the financial crisis and charges President-Elect Obama to "make our education system an exemplar for the world." Carter writes

If federal lawmakers can work together to bail out the nation's financial institutions, why can't they work together to ensure that our children acquire the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills they need to succeed in the 21st century? Can we afford to let one student drop out of high school every 26 seconds, amounting to a yearly loss of more than $300 billion in lifetime earning potential? For the United States to maintain its status as an economic and political leader, we must commit to being a global education leader. We must develop our human capital with as much urgency as our financial capital.

What's your opinion? Taking into consideration other issues, such as the economy, environment, health care, and national security, where do you rank education as a priority for the incoming Obama administration?

Discipline Experts Advise on Keeping Your Cool

How do you respond when a student says something like, "This class sucks"? Brian Mendler, one of the three authors of the third edition of Discipline with Dignity, suggests listening, acknowledging, agreeing, deferring, and then walking away.

"Agreeing is the hardest part," says Mendler. But if you can redirect a disruptive student by saying "I hear you and you might be right, but now's not the time to talk about it," and then move on with what you were originally doing, Mendler believes you have a powerful tool for defusing a common classroom frustration. By offering to hear a student's recommendations for improving the class at a later time, you give students an outlet for articulating their needs but also weed out the kids who just want to complain and have no intentions of constructive dialogue.

If a kid does take time out of their day to meet with you about how the class could be improved, this is actually a good thing, says Mendler. It shows they care about the class and are invested in making it better.

We talked with authors Rick Curwin and Brian Mendler about the latest edition of Discipline with Dignity and found out how the classroom management landscape has changed and how teachers are keeping their cool with challenging students and parents.

Go to the ASCD Talks With an Author page to hear this and other author interviews.

Getting Kids Googled Well

 In "Footprints in the Digital Age," Will Richardson speaks to the importance of teaching students how to ensure that they are googled well. Some of you might be wary about not only encouraging, but also guiding students in creating publicly available online content.

Here, Will Richardson, our guest EL blogger, gives advice on this topic. Here's what he has to say:

One of the barriers to making our kids "googled well" is the discomfort that many parents have with the idea of putting student work online. The more I think about this and talk with teachers about it, the more convinced I am that the best way to make this work is to start having these conversations in the earliest grades, and to include parents every step of the way.

Public or Private?

While many people are focusing on who President-elect Barack Obama will pick for his cabinet and how he will deal with the world's issues once he takes office, there is another debate on where he should send his children to school. Many feel he should send them to public school since he is an elected official who spent much of his career fighting for education improvement and what better way to show faith in the public education system than to allow his own children to be educated there. Others feel private schools may offer better security and provide his children a better education considering all the turmoil in the D.C. school system right now.

On the November 17 Kojo Nnamdi Show, guest Stephanie Mencimer and Nnamdi discussed her recent blog post on Mother Jones that asked Obama to put his children in public school. Mencimer, who has a child in D.C. public schools,said choosing public education would "give public schools a boost of confidence" and notes that many middle class families pick private schools over public in D.C. and by having his children enrolled in a public school, Obama would help the school system by leaps and bounds.

A caller who went to public school with President Jimmy Carter's daughter described the experience as "miserable," but another caller who had a child attend Sidwell Friends, a private school, with Chelsea Clinton said it benefited the school.

Should Barack Obama send his children to a private or public school? If he opts for private school, do you think it shows a lack of faith in public education?

Banking On Their Future

Critics claim that current math classes don't teach real-life skills, such as managing money or understanding the stock market, but West Side High School in Newark, N.J., aims for that to change. Capital One Bank recently opened a branch inside the school, with students working as tellers and mentoring fellow classmates on the importance of managing money and opening savings and checking accounts.

Bank employee and student Dalecia Apple tells New Jersey's Star-Ledger that before working at the bank, she would spend all of her money at once and end up broke. One of the aims of the Capital One-West Side partnerships is to help other students like Apple, especially those with limited experience managing a bank account, learn fiscal responsibility.

What do you think about student-run businesses on school grounds? Does your school have similar partnerships?

Parent Advocates, New York Style

Families speak out on NYC Public School Parents and, in the style of The Onion, make their points with snarky fake news. They petition for causes such as smaller class size and ask provocative questions about public school policy. A recent parody news piece, reacting to reports of standardized testing for kindergartners, tells of yet another plan: to administer high-stakes tests to newborn babies, along with test prep for the expectant parents.

On a more serious note, the site makes objections to real plans, such as rewarding students who get good grades with cash and cell phone minutes, and laments the departure of admired education journalists to other newspaper beats. This strongly opinionated blog may ruffle feathers, but for those who primarily read education blogs written by educators, it's an eye-opening view from another perspective.

Flaunting Yr Stupidity on Facebook

Five Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) teachers face disciplinary actions for making publicly available Facebook postings in poor taste. The offenses range from derogatory statements about their schools and the students they teach to sexually suggestive images and comments. A Charlotte news station, WCNC, found the CMS teachers' profiles when searching for people who had identified themselves as CMS employees. The profiles in question could have easily been rendered private.

Most school districts check MySpace and Facebook for the profiles of potential new hires but do not generally scour social networking sites for teachers who are already employed.

Should we be policing teachers' Internet use, or is this an invasion of privacy? Should schools rewrite teaching contracts to include a clause about appropriate Internet use, especially in terms of social networking sites? Does your school already have such a policy?

Are We "Protecting" Students from Responsibility?

In "Students at Bat," Thomas Guskey and Eric Anderman wax nostalgic for the days when kids organized their own neighborhood baseball games without adults packaging everything for them and continually swooping in to protect them from injuries, fights, or failures.

Guskey and Anderman point out that students' learning experiences in school are now similarly prepackaged. Teachers "protect" students from the messy responsibilities of deciding how to use their time, setting their own goals, and even failing a time or two. The authors claim that

In most classrooms, teacher choose where students will sit, with whom they will work, and how they will spend their time . . . As students advance in grades, these decisions become more formalized and restrictive through course requirements and structured school schedules.

Do you agree that teachers make too many decisions about learning for students, undercutting their ability to act responsibly? Are we "protecting" students from becoming active, resilient learners?

New Report: Measuring Skills for the 21st Century

This week, Education Sector released the report Measuring Skills for the 21st Century and hosted an online discussion about 21st century learning. In that discussion, Judith Goodrich from Augusta Lewis Troup School asked:

Schools are faced with the pressure of standardized tests and the impact of making annual yearly progress. Schools that are struggling have little time in a rigid schedule to integrate 21st century skills. How do we turn the tide on a practical level in our classrooms—is cooperative/collaborative learning the place to start?

Among the responses from the panel of experts, Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds, "Nope, changing the standards and assessments is the place to start."

In the upcoming January 2009 issue of Education Update, we sit down with the executive director of West Virginia's Teach 21 project, a statewide initiative to align teaching, standards, and assessments with 21st century skills and learning, and examine how one state is "turning the tide on a practical level."

What are your questions about teaching and assessing for 21st century skills?

Fostering Self-Direction

Arthur W. Combs writes in Educational Leadership, "The information explosion has blasted for all time the notion that we can feed all students the same diet . . . this calls for student cooperation and acceptance of major responsibility for his own learning."

This passage comes from the article "Fostering Self-Direction," which appeared not in the recent issue of EL ("Giving Students Ownership of Learning"), but in February 1966. If the "information explosion" of that era compelled students to take more responsibility for their own learning, imagine how urgent Combs might regard the situation in 2008.

Read the article: Fostering Self-Direction (PDF)

No-Grades, No-Stress Learning Environment

Parents used to camp out to get their children enrolled in Christa McAuliffe School in Silicon Valley, Calif., but now the school is struggling to fill seats. Christa McAuliffe is a public school that differs in one very striking way—it has no tests and no formal grades. The school is based on the premise that students learn better in a stress-free environment that allows them to get more individual attention and learn at their own pace about things they're interested in. Students are generally engaged in the classroom and are taught to think for themselves and not to focus on just memorizing answers.

Under the stringent No Child Left Behind law, Christa McAuliffe has suffered because of the focus on testing and assessments that schools now face. The school does not encourage students to take the state's standardized tests but insists the students do just fine in high school and beyond.

Do you think schooling without grades or testing is good preparation for the real world?

A Radical Curriculum Idea: Could It Work?

In "Learning in Depth," Canadian educator Kieran Egan proposes a radical idea for structuring students' learning:

Imagine a future in which it would be routine for schools to randomly assign 1st graders one topic to study through grade 12, along with the regular curriculum. Students would learn about birds, apples, the circus, railways, the solar system, and so on . . . Each student, by the end of his or her schooling, would know as much about that topic as almost anyone on earth.

What do you think of Egan's proposal? Would it benefit students to study one topic in depth throughout their school career—or would it narrow their learning and bore them? Could you imagine implementing this proposal in your school system?

Did Well on Your Test? Here's an MP3 Player.

Last week's most-clicked SmartBrief news item examined incentive programs that reward students for attending class or doing well on tests. Students in cities ranging from D.C. to Boston can receive cash or other lucrative rewards for improvement in class.

Proponents argue that the incentives motivate underachieving students and will drive up test scores and close the achievement gap. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says that for years suburban parents have rewarded their children with cars and vacations for being successful in school, but low-income, urban students do not generally experience these luxuries. With incentive programs, the low-income students get a small taste of the rewards suburban students have been getting for years.

Those arguing against the programs say they are a form of bribery and that while money may motivate a student to do well in the short run, it hurts their intrinsic motivation to learn in the long run. Others argue that the money could be wisely spent on proven methods of improvement, such as smaller class sizes, and question what will happen if the rewards stop coming.

Do you support rewarding students with cash and gifts for achievement, or do you think it is only a short-term solution that may do future harm?

Update: November’s Whole Child Podcast

This month’s episode of the whole child podcast focuses on how to develop students’ global understanding.

Listen to Kate Berseth from EF Education, a leader in international exchange programs, talk about how much American students have to learn about the world they live in. But the news isn’t all bad. Paul Sandrock from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction explains his state's innovative international education efforts. And Chris Sperry, a social studies teacher form Ithaca, N.Y., and director of Project Look Sharp describes how he engages students in learning by asking them to think deeply about tough issues from different cultural perspectives.

The Paradox of Giving Students Control

In their article in the November Educational Leadership ("Formative Assessment That Empowers"), Susan Brookhart, Connie Moss, and Beverly Long point out this paradox of fostering students' ownership of learning: the teacher is in control of how much control the student experiences. In other words, great teachers take pains to create a learning environment that allows students—not teachers—to take charge.

Do you agree that good teachers set up environments that lead students to take charge? What’s one way you’ve found to do this in your own classroom?

Educated Foresight from Decades Past

When planning curriculum, educators often confront the difficult task of predicting what the future might hold for their students. What new technologies might emerge? What type of job environments might they encounter upon graduation? Will they be prepared for the world of tomorrow? In the September 1989 issue of Educational Leadership, professor Harold Shane looks ahead to the 1990s, wonders what's in store, and brainstorms ways teachers and administrators can meet the challenges ahead.

Read the article: Educated Foresight for the 1990s (PDF)

Loose Lips at Detention Slip

Sleazy? The Drudge Report of the education blogoshere? Giving public education a bad rap? These are some of the objections leveled against controversial education blog Detention Slip. Focusing on the absurd and salacious, this popular site collects news stories from around the country and provides brief abstracts and snarky commentary. If a bus driver goes berserk or a dress code fiasco is brewing, expect to find a post about it here.

Although much of Detention Slip is light on nuanced analysis, some educators find the hot tips useful. Dangerously Irrelevant's Scott McLeod, for example, uses the referenced news stories in his school law classes, and one of his readers passes out posts in staff meetings. Others, like Justin Bathon at The Edjurist, worry that Detention Slip is more concerned with sensationalism and ad revenue than improving education. Judge for yourself, and let us know what you think.