ASCD Inservice

Contrasting Attitudes of Japanese and American Teachers (1982)

In the March 1982 issue of Educational Leadership, research associate Takiko Morimoto explores the attitudes of Japanese and American educators by comparing survey results from a small sample of teachers in Los Angeles with a small sample in Tokyo. Asked about their role in the classroom and within the larger social context, the two groups of teachers differed significantly in approach, outlook, and practice.

Read the article: Contrasting Attitudes of Japanese and American Teachers (PDF)

Extrapolating from survey results, Morimoto notes that just as Japanese factory workers more closely identify with their companies than do American workers, Japanese teachers more closely identify with their schools. Japanese teachers surveyed favored shared decision making and top-down reforms and saw teaching as a personal mission with great value. For example, more than half of the Japanese teachers polled would give up summer vacations to help improve their teaching, and close to 90 percent would refuse to take a second job if it would compromise their teaching—even if they needed the money.

By contrast, American teachers in Morimoto's sample were more likely to see schools "chiefly as a workplace." Morimoto explains that for the Americans surveyed, personal enrichment and self-actualization were more important than a sense of social duty. These American teachers also found teaching less personally satisfying than their Japanese peers did. (Flash forward to the future: Public Agenda and Learning Points Associates' recent study where 40% of teachers identify as "disheartened": Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today.)

Leadership for the 21st Century: Breaking Down the Bonds of Dependency (1998)

Because of work overload and competing responsibilities, principals often find it challenging to blaze new trails and lead proactively. In the April 1998 issue of Educational Leadership, internationally known educator Michael Fullan writes about how principals can overcome some of these obstacles and become leaders in school reform. 

Read the article: Leadership for the 21st Century: Breaking the Bonds of Dependency

For Fullan, the demands of the job—the "constant bombardment of new tasks and the continual interruptions"—create a context that encourages principals to depend on quick fixes and one-size-fits-all solutions. He suggests "giving up the search for a silver bullet" and instead recommends taking concrete steps that will lead to school reform. These steps include respecting those who you want to silence, forging new alliances, managing on both an emotional and rational level, and staying hopeful in the face of adversity.

With principals still feeling the weight of immense responsibility, Fullan's advice feels relevant almost a decade later. His prescription for school reform encourages leaders to shrug off insecurity and take charge in smart and effective ways.

Homework's Powerful Effects on Learning (1985)

What sort of effect does homework have on student learning? In the April 1985 issue of Educational Leadership, educators Herbert J. Walberg, Rosanne A. Paschal, and Thomas Weinstein synthesize 15 studies and find a direct correlation between homework and student achievement.

Read the article: Homework's Powerful Effects on Learning (PDF)

"There seems little doubt that homework has substantial effects on students' learning," the group notes. The authors cite studies claiming that if homework is assigned, a student in the 50th percentile will jump to the 60th. If the homework is graded, the increase is even more dramatic, with students jumping from 50th to 79th. The authors also argue that Japanese students have higher student achievement scores as a direct result of the larger amount of homework they do.

Those of you following discussions of homework policy might want to put a footnote or two on this conclusion.

My Back Pages: A Brief History of Differentiated Instruction (1953)

Educators have been working to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms since long before Carol Ann Tomlinson's day, although this work hasn't always been described as the familiar "DI." In December 1953, Educational Leadership devoted an issue to the theme "The Challenge of Individual Difference."

Real DI junkies can peruse the whole issue, with articles such as "Matching Ten Reading Levels in One Classroom" and "Teaching the Individual Adolescent," but the casual historian would be well-served to check out the lead article, "Adjusting the Program to the Child," by Carleton W. Washburne.

Read the article: Adjusting the Program to the Child (PDF)

Washburne takes the reader through a short history of reform efforts aimed at making education more individualized, beginning with the efforts of charismatic educator Preston Search, of Pueblo, Colo., and proceeding through the work of Frederic Burk, who "started a movement to make textbooks self-instructive and enable children, systematically, to progress according to their own ability." From the Project Method to ability grouping, Washburne's history shows how evolving understanding of learning and development shapes educators' efforts to meet the needs of all students.

My Back Pages: Dropout Forum (1974)

"The Silent Epidemic," the much-discussed 2006 report on dropouts, surveyed students who left high school without graduating and asked them why they did so and what might have kept them in school. The report was powerful not only because of the detailed data it presented but also because of the vivid quotes it presented from dropouts—their opinions, concerns, and regrets. 

The follow-up to that report, "On the Front Lines of Schools," considers the perspectives of teachers and principals facing the dropout crisis.

And in a webinar this Wednesday, representatives from Louisiana and South Carolina discuss the data systems they've developed to identify potential dropouts before it's too late.

Unfortunately, dropping out has proved to be a timeless issue. In May 1974, Educational Leadership published "Dropout Forum," an article that surveyed two groups of dropouts with whom the authors worked, one from a county adult-education program and one from a state women’s prison. They asked the focus groups what made them leave school, their opinion on student rights, and their general feelings toward education. 

My Back Pages: ASCD Book Banned (1948)

"No school adequately trains for American citizenship unless it helps students develop skills in dealing with controversial issues," Kimball Wiles argues in the article "Building America: A Case in Point," from the November 1948 Educational Leadership. Yet for a California legislative committee and grand jury, the books in the Building America series, owned by ASCD, were too controversial for classrooms and school libraries.

Read the article: Building America: A Case in Point (PDF)

Why were the books inappropriate? Among the reasons were that they used pictures supplied by Sovfoto, a stock photography company specializing in images from Eastern Europe and China that the California Investigating Committee called "the official Soviet propaganda agency"; they included cartoons critical of presidents Lincoln and Jefferson; and the authors included in the text were allegedly "affiliated with Communist front organizations," according to their critics. 

My Back Pages: How Our School Applied Multiple Intelligences Theory (1992)

"How we define intelligence makes a philosophical statement about what we value in education,"explains school director Thomas Hoerr. In the October 1992 issue of Educational Leadership, this ASCD author discusses how his preK–6 school adopted Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences and the impact it had on students and teachers alike.

Read the article: How Our School Applied Multiple Intelligences Theory (PDF)

My Back Pages: Wanted: A Definition of Teaching

The editorial leading off Educational Leadership's December 1961 issue, on the theme of "What Is Teaching?", shares a number of different perspectives to kick off the exploration of this question. 

Read the article: "Needed: A Valid Concept of Teaching" (PDF)

Professor Herman Frick recalls the following definitions:

"We are all teachers, for what we do and say sets an example for the people around us, and thus our every act is an act of teaching." (From "a brilliant young minister") 

"He is wrong about teaching—to me, teaching is the specific act of one who knows the answer telling or explaining the answer to those who don’t know it. It is that simple." (From "an equally brilliant young lawyer") 

Frick makes the point that teaching means many things to many people, and yet to properly evaluate teaching we must continually reassess what we believe it to be. Finally, he offers his belief that "perhaps teaching is the application of the best-known principles of human behavior in efforts to promote the highest possible achievement of personal adequacy through learning." Of course, he adds that teaching must also continually reevaluate what personal adequacy is.

My Back Pages: Is the Socratic Method Dangerous?

Can the use of the Socratic method pose a danger to our students? Such is the premise of a September 1984 Educational Leadership article by education professor Louis Goldman.

Read the article: Warning: The Socratic Method Can Be Dangerous (PDF)  

Plato advised against teaching with the Socratic method until students had mastered all of higher education and, even then, believed it shouldn't be used with students until they are 30 years old, Goldman says. The intense process of inquiry and examination, argues Goldman, goes against the goal of providing "a firm grounding in the nature of our values and culture." He states that while educators should be open to discussion and put lessons in the proper context, they should not try to "take the initiative to demonstrate inconsistencies" in them. 

Goldman allows for a middle ground, what he calls "an idea-centered curriculum," grounded in traditional liberal arts by a staff with diverse worldviews, as opposed to a curriculum that is skill-centered. He suggests that attempts to explicitly teach "problem-solving techniques or critical thinking" may lead to less critical thinking (a viewpoint he concedes is "heretical").

Have you used the Socratic method in your classrooms—and would you recommend it?

Creative Thinking and the Common Student

What exactly is creativity? Does it follow a predictable pattern? How do institutions like schools and businesses affect our ability to be creative? In the October 1956 issue of Educational Leadership, three education scholars discuss creativity and its relationship to learning in a series of articles titled "Creative Thinking and the Common Man: A Symposium."

Read the articles:

Creative Thinking and the Common Man: A Symposium / 1. The Idea of Creativity (PDF)
Creative Thinking and the Common Man: A Symposium / 2. The Process of Creative Thinking (PDF)
Creative Thinking and the Common Man: A Symposium / 3. Creativity vs. Organization Life (PDF)

My Back Pages: No Age Barriers to World Understanding (1946)

"Today, as teachers, we find ourselves alternately amazed and frustrated by the speed at which things are happening . . . learning experiences and training materials for children must take cognizance of this new and amazingly real and interdependent world."

With international conflicts ongoing and an increasingly worldwide financial crisis, educators today are hearing familiar calls to educate students for the realities of the interconnected globe. Yet the above quote, from Boulder, Colo. elementary supervisor Marie Anna Mehl, comes from her October 1946 Educational Leadership article "No Age Barriers to World Understanding" (PDF). In the article, she writes of the urgency to educate children with a sense of social responsibility, particularly in light of the awesome power of the atomic bomb.

In a case study of her efforts to reform her schools’ social studies curriculum, Mehl details the importance of cultivating world understanding in the "grass roots" of the early grades, through both experiences such as cooperative learning and discussion of the world's different cultures and economic realities. She casts these two strands as complimentary, as children who are "emotionally sensitized" to working together will better understand the interconnectedness of the worlds' people.

How do you integrate issues of global cooperation and interconnectedness in your classroom?

Curriculum Changes That Help Test Scores (1984)

In the December 1983/January 1984 issue of Educational Leadership, mathematics and education professor Grayson H. Wheatley discusses how an increased emphasis on problem solving improved elementary math scores in Marion, Ind., by leaps and bounds.

Read the article: Problem Solving Makes Math Scores Soar (PDF)

Wheatley describes how Marion educators, in an effort to boost low test scores, shifted from "a rule-oriented to a process-oriented curriculum." Rather than teaching subject matter in discrete sections, teachers encouraged students to understand mathematics as a set of interrelated concepts. Along with this shift in focus, Marion schools also developed pacing guides and increased teacher inservice training. The net result? From 1979 to 1983, elementary math scores jumped upwards of 40 points.

My Back Pages: Internet Killed the TV Star?

A discussion of literacy in today's classrooms inevitably involves the Internet, and schools are working furiously to keep up with the new demands of the Internet age. But the World Wide Web isn't the first innovation that has permeated education. It's instructive to look back at how educators dealt with the last major technological change that influenced literacy: the television.

In the December 1978 Educational Leadership, Western Washington University clinical professor Don Brown predicts that television is here to stay. He urges educators to learn to use television to their advantage instead of "constantly decrying its content." 

Read the article: Reading TV: Today's Basic (PDF)

My Back Pages: Woodstock, a Moon Landing, and ELL (1969)

The year 1969 was a tumultuous one—especially for three children ages 6 through 10 who landed in the United States without any knowledge of the English language. In the December 1969 issue of Educational Leadership, Theda M. Wilson of Baltimore City Public Schools describes what methods effectively helped them acquire English.

In particular, she cites three games they played in the classroom, playground, and living room: Simon Says, Guess What I’m Thinking?, and 20 Questions. The educator also stresses the importance of interaction with peers who are fluent in English, hands-on experiential learning, and frequent corrective feedback.

• Read the article: English as a Second Language (PDF)

We’ve certainly expanded our knowledge of what works in educating English language learners—for a comprehensive meta-analysis of research, see Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners—but this look back almost 40 years is a fascinating time capsule of how educators approached the issue in the past.

In "My Back Pages," we look at important issues through the historical lens of the Educational Leadership archives. ASCD members can access to EL issues from 1943 to the present by signing in at www.ascd.org.

My Back Pages: Mass Media Literacy (1971)

As today's students are inundated with more information than ever before, are schools adequately teaching media literacy? In 1971, Castelle G. Gentry and Margaret Shallcross, of the University of Toledo, Ohio, share their concerns about the increasing amount of mass media—in particular, the considerable time children spend watching television—and what they feel is schools' lack of attention to information literacy.

Read the article: Mass Media Instruction: A Missing Link? (PDF)

"We still operate as if the school, the church, and the home are the only sources of information and values," Gentry and Shallcross write. In ominous italics, they warn that except for a few schools, "no one in education is attempting to train children or adults to interpret the mass media." 

Education for the 21st Century

In the September 1983 issue of Educational Leadership, education professor Arthur J. Lewis looks ahead to the 21st century and considers what it means for education. His predictions on technology, the information age, and emerging demographic trends are surprisingly prescient and offer an early perspective on globalization and the digital age.

Read the article: Education for the 21st Century (PDF)

The Exquisite Language of the Arts

All too often, arts education is regarded as a whimsical activity rather than a serious academic subject. In the December 1987/January 1988 issue of Educational Leadership, former U.S. Commissioner of Education and President of the Carnegie Foundation Ernest Boyer argues that the arts should be considered in both an intellectual and imaginative context.

Read the article: It's Not 'Either Or,' It's Both (PDF)

For Boyer, art—like any form of language—can be explored on an academic level. Children can learn about art history, rules of perspective, and the connections between creativity and culture. But, as much as art stimulates the intellect, it is also a way to explore the human spirit. Understanding the arts on both levels is crucial. As Boyer notes, "[O]ur children need to see clearly, hear acutely, and feel sensitively through the exquisite language of the arts." 

As ASCD focuses on the Whole Child Initiative, Boyer reminds us that arts education can play a vital role providing in a well-rounded education for all students.

In "My Back Pages," we look at important issues through the historical lens of the Educational Leadership archives. ASCD members can access EL issues from 1943 to the present by signing in at www.ascd.org.

It Happened in Dog Creek

In 1945, the town of Dog Creek, 20 miles outside Nashville, Tenn., was home to a one-room schoolhouse and a brand-new teacher. An intrepid group of educators from across Tennessee set out for the town to conduct an experiment in training rural schoolteachers on taking leadership roles. "It Happened in Dog Creek," from the February 1945 issue of Educational Leadership, is the fascinating story of the learning experience that took place.

Read the article: It Happened in Dog Creek (PDF)

The Principal's Role in Fostering Collaboration

In this installment of My Back Pages, we revisit a lively discussion from 1948 on teacher collaboration and school leadership. What role should the principal play in fostering a cooperative environment for teachers? How can educators work across departmental divisions to develop a strong curriculum? These are just a couple of the questions addressed among a group of Denver educators in "Supervision as It Functions in the Instructional Program: A Discussion" from the April 1948 issue of Educational Leadership.

Read the transcript: Supervision as It Functions in the Instructional Program: A Discussion (PDF)

How Are We Grouping?

The March 1947 Educational Leadership article "How Are We Grouping?" looks at a wide range of ability grouping practices at various schools.

Read the article: How Are We Grouping? (PDF) 

An Ohio elementary principal claims, "The techniques of grouping do not constitute the most important problem. The critical question is how the children, teachers, and parents feel about it. Grouping must be acceptable to parents and teachers, known and understood by them. It must be administered by a high sensitiveness to how people, little and big, feel about any and all aspects of the program. It must be developed slowly and through cooperative planning with the pupils, moving toward the democratic ideals of respect for persons, faith in intelligence, and cooperative solution of common problems."