Poor Minority Kids Need Scripted Teaching; Everyone Else Deserves Something Better
June 3, 2007
Last month, an interesting article was published in The Oregonian describing how scripted curricula had made their way into the poorer schools within the Portland school district. Here’s an excerpt:
“Portland Public Schools students, especially low-income ones, are spending more time with their heads buried in books, learning to read in kindergarten, deciphering math and cramming in still more with evening homework.
Zeroing in on the basics has paid off: Low-income elementary students are doing better than ever. Who could argue with what it takes to make that happen?
Parents, that’s who.
Specifically, middle-income parents whose children will enter kindergarten already reading, thanks to stellar preschools and evening story time. They look at the worksheets and the phonics drills and wonder: How could my child possibly enjoy this?”
Notably, Portland has not introduced this in all of its schools, just the poorest ones:
“King’s staff grappled with low test scores for years. The school has the district’s second-highest poverty rate, with 92 percent of students qualifying for subsidized school lunch. Now the school uses the federally funded Reading First program in kindergarten through third grade.
Not all Portland schools use the program, says Judy Elliott, the district’s chief of teaching and learning, and the curriculum adoption won’t extend it to those that don’t.”
This quote from a parent says it all:
The grapevine carried word of King’s program to Daniel Sullivan. The Portland State University sociology professor lives four blocks from King. But his son will start kindergarten next year at the Metropolitan Learning Center, a K-12 alternative public school that follows the philosophy of his son’s preschool.
‘For kids who don’t come from households where they’re learning how to read and probably with parents who aren’t highly educated, they said (King’s) can be a very successful program,’ Sullivan says. ‘But I have a Ph.D., and my wife has a Ph.D. He’s a high-energy kid. I don’t want him sitting in a desk all the time.’ “
So, to summarize, apparently it’s OK for the poor (and disproportionately minority) students to suffer through drill-and-kill reading instruction, but children from middle-class and upper-class families deserve something more stimulating? Interesting.
At least those inner-city students don’t have to deal with bad facilities, less money allotted per student than in rich neighborhoods, and less experienced teachers, or we might think this is outright discrimination.
Entry Filed under: Education, Elementary Education, Fifth Grade, First Grade, Fourth Grade, High Schools, Learning, Life, No Child Left Behind, Reading, Reform, Scripted Lessons, Second Grade, Secondary Education, Students, Teaching, Third Grade, school. .
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1.
SLM | June 13, 2007 at 1:31 pm
You, and I’m sure others, are the ones who are labeling one teaching method as better than the other. I see no evidence that you actually know that “drill and kill” is less effective than whatever the middle-class students’ parents would like to see for their children. I suspect you generally assume that whatever the poorer children are being served must be of lesser quality than what the children of middle-class children are being served. Are you going to deny that children from different backgrounds might benefit from different teaching styles?
2.
ns | June 13, 2007 at 5:47 pm
It’s not that the middle class kids deserve better. With money (and more involved parents) you get more options. Unfortunately, when you are poor, you have less options, so you have to take whatever you can get - which means, whatever is free.
If a middle class parent has the means and the inclination, they should be able to send their kid to a school that has a different method of teaching without being called a racist snob. Does this mean that the rich deserve better? The rich have more options. And when you care to research more options, you HAVE more options.
I am not rich. I want a yacht. Does that mean I don’t deserve one? Does that mean rich people are better than me just because they have yachts and I don’t? Does this mean that rich people are snooty racists?
Having more money and wanting more options does not make you an elite racist. It just means you can. You CAN buy a boat if you want. You CAN send your kid to a crunchy granola free love school. If you don’t have the money, you can’t. Doesn’t mean the rich are better or deserve more, it just means they have more options because they have the means.
The divide between rich and poor has always been this way. The rich have more options. The poor have less options. You cannot even out the options, because this can only lead to socialism/communism, and we all know how well THAT works!
3.
thirdgradeteacher | June 13, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Thanks for the comments. In response to SLM, “drill and kill” may be effective, depending on how you define effectiveness, but it is also stultifying, and that’s why families who can avoid it typically do. I do think it is of lesser quality than other forms of instruction.
In response to ns, I’m not trying to suggest that we should take options away from the middle and upper-class students, but rather that we should set our sights higher for everyone, offering even impoverished students a chance to enjoy teaching that is humane rather than scripted.
4.
Scott McLeod | June 14, 2007 at 8:56 am
I posted a link to this conversation on my blog:
http://tinyurl.com/2ymyae
Hope you get some good traffic and discussion!
5.
Jason Bednar | June 14, 2007 at 9:41 am
I also think this conversation has an interesting link to the Scarcity blog at Leadertalk. http://tinyurl.com/3xvglb
6.
Sailorman | June 14, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I’m a relatively rich white parent. I would be TOTALLY PSYCHED if my school would adopt some DI tactics. After all, who doesn’t want their kid to be better educated? For another large sample of parents who want their kids to get some more focused DI-type instruction, check out the blog “kitchen table math.”
I suspect this reporter was trying to create “news” by selectively quoting anti-DI opinions from the other schools.
Moreover, the statistics back up this article. A lot of research shows that students who are poor and minorities tend to have a disproportional lack of academic reinforcement in their homes.
I don’t mean that poor and minorities “undervalue” education. rather, I am referring to the link between, say, language richness at home and language skills acquired by students; between math skills of parents and math skills acquired by students.
Why is this relevant? Well, the “normal” model of education tends to give non-mastery-level teaching, and depends on the child and/or the child’s environment to provide the reinforcement necessary to obtain complete mastery. So (in theory) when a child learns the word “capability” in school, even if she doesn’t remember it perfectly, the learning in school will be reinforced by the new ability to recognize “capability” when someone says it in passing.
Great, right? But it ONLY WORKS if the child is actually exposed to the word “capability.” If the child is not so exposed, then the lack os mastery learning means she’ll have to relearn it eventually. Which is a basic was of saying it’s a detriment, or at least far from ideal.
As a result, mastery learning is especially suited to situations where children lack extra-academic reinforcement opportunities (this tends to be more true in poor minority communities). It doesn’t impugn the intelligence of the student. Far from it. Rather, the tactic recognizes that such students want to–and are entitled to–learn as best as they can in the environment in which they live.
7.
sylvia martinez | June 14, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Scripting is imposed in the belief that it will fix the problem of low teacher quality and high teacher turnover which is prevalent in low-income schools. Unfortunately, these students need higher quality teachers who are able to take time to explore and nurture student’s individual gifts. Scripted teaching is a cheap band-aid that hurts kids in the long run and de-professionalizes teachers. Our society will suffer in the long run if we continue to chase good teachers out of the classroom and refuse to listen to teachers who have the guts to stay and speak up and say that it’s “stultifying” and would only be tolerated by poor people who have no other choice.
Politicians love quick-fix solutions like this, because they don’t have to sit quietly for hours at a time and listen to an endless succession of bored substitute teachers reading a script every day. They get to declare “mission accomplished” and congratulate themselves.
8.
Sailorman | June 14, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Really? Have you read anything discussing (for example) the extraordinary differential in out of school language exposure for poor minority children?
But what I would really like is a focused answer to the issues I raised in my response. You don’t actually address the needs of kids now. Instead, you bemoan the effect on “society at large” and ask for “higher quality” teachers who “nurture student’s[sic] individual gifts.”
Sure: high quality teachers are good. And whatever “nurturing students’ individual gifts” is, I imagine it’s also good. It sounds good, at least.
So what?
What does your response have to do with what to teach these students NOW, with the teachers we have NOW, in the life they live NOW? (Nothing, as far as I can see.)
What concrete alternatives do you suggest to the currently proposed concrete solution of DI? (none.) How does your proposal measure, and provide, more success than DI? (we don’t know, if it does at all.) How much does your proposal rest on the inane assumption that whatever poor people get is “worse?” (a lot, apparently–which ignores the fact that
Basically, you’re arguing against “deprofessionalizing” teachers. Which is all well and good until you realize that all those “professional” teachers weren’t doing so great of a job with these kids beforehand, hmmm? And since everyone used to complain about the externalities of teaching, and how it was never the teachers’ fault, and how the administration needed to change the way things worked… well, it looks to me that this is what the administration did. They changed tactics.
Sure, it so happens that you don’t like the result. So what? The question of whether the result is appropriate is solely based on whether or not the children are learning more than they were before. Whether you feel “deprofessionalized” is entirely irrelevant to the interests and needs of the students.
And (ahem) a really “dedicated” professional would understand that to be the case. A biased professional on the other hand, might not. Self-interest is an ugly thing.
9.
thirdgradeteacher | June 14, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Thanks to Scott for the link and thanks to Jason for the article.
Sailorman — re: your first comment, thanks for your intelligent presentation of the other side of the argument. I took a look at the kitchen table math blog you suggested, and I think that the conversation about reform math vs. traditional math is something different than the conversation about scripted teaching. I personally taught a reform math curriculum for a few years and agree that it needed to be supplemented by a good dose of the basics.
As to whether this type of scripted instruction works, you can find data on both sides of that argument. One commentor from the article I cited noted that, “It is not clear that Portland schools’ low-income students thrive on regimented learning… According to statistics just released by the US Dept of Education, for low-income third graders in Oregon doing Reading First, there was only a 3% increase in the percentage of low-income third grade children considered “proficient” in reading comprehension between 2004 and 2005. For all income groups, the gain was 5%. This means Reading First is not helping low-income children close the gap.”
Here’s a new question for you, Sailorman: Is effectiveness all that matters? For conversation’s sake, if I granted you the point that scripted instruction could be somewhat more effective (however we define effectiveness) for impoverished students, does that automatically mean we should be using it in schools in low-income areas? What if we’ve helped our students to read slightly more effectively than before, but they now hate reading with a passion? What if we’ve upped our test scores a few points, but we’ve driven away our most talented, creative teachers and our most educated, dedicated parents?
Sylvia — thanks for your comment. An additional thought that arose as I read your post: I wonder if our politicians would send their own children to schools with this type of instruction.
10.
Sailorman | June 14, 2007 at 5:20 pm
thirdgradeteacher said,
June 14, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Thanks to Scott for the link and thanks to Jason for the article.
Sailorman — re: your first comment, thanks for your intelligent presentation of the other side of the argument. I took a look at the kitchen table math blog you suggested, and I think that the conversation about reform math vs. traditional math is something different than the conversation about scripted teaching.
I’ve spent a lot of time on that site–it’s actually pretty heavy on the scripting and mastery issue. Scripting is but one way to get to mastery, of course. But I won’t waste any more of your time talking about that site when we can talk about your post instead
As to whether this type of scripted instruction works, you can find data on both sides of that argument. One commentor from the article I cited noted that, “It is not clear that Portland schools’ low-income students thrive on regimented learning… According to statistics just released by the US Dept of Education, for low-income third graders in Oregon doing Reading First, there was only a 3% increase in the percentage of low-income third grade children considered “proficient” in reading comprehension between 2004 and 2005. For all income groups, the gain was 5%. This means Reading First is not helping low-income children close the gap.”
I am trying to figure out what you are saying here. As far as I can see, you’re saying that the improvement is small, and therefore that there’s data on “both sides” of the argument. But unless I’m sorely mistaken, there’s no ‘other side’ in what you wrote.
I will freely admit that there IS another side to this debate, and that I’ve seen it elsewhere; I just don’t see it here. (do you have data showing, for example, that non-Reading-First folks in that area of equivalent class had a proficiency increase of more than 3 or 5%? That would do it.)
I don’t want to pick on you, but this is part of the frustrating thing with discussing this topic. A lot of the “other side” stuff isn’t actually data that relates to, well, the opposing position. Instead, it’s either unquantifiable statements (see Sylvia’s comment) or an illogical attack (as in the above paragraph.)
Here’s a new question for you, Sailorman: Is effectiveness all that matters?
If effectiveness is properly defined: Yes.
For conversation’s sake, if I granted you the point that scripted instruction could be somewhat more effective (however we define effectiveness) for impoverished students, does that automatically mean we should be using it in schools in low-income areas?
Pretty much, yes.
What if we’ve helped our students to read slightly more effectively than before, but they now hate reading with a passion?
Not to quibble over semantics (I can work with whatever definition you choose), but:
I consider it reasonable to weigh hatred of the subject as making something more “ineffective.” This is particularly true at low grade levels.
HOWEVER, as we both know, someone who “loves books” but can’t read is still illiterate. And illiteracy is a huge problem in society.
I think illiteracy is a larger issue than failure to “like” or “love” reading. I would rather produce 100 completely literate students who never pick up fiction again, than produce 50 students who love to (and can) read, and 50 students who want to (and can’t) read.
Do you disagree? Why?
And while we’re on this sentence: I assume from your question that you don’t think effectiveness is all that matters. What else do you think matters? How would you measure it? How would you know if you were providing it or not?
What if we’ve upped our test scores a few points, but we’ve driven away our most talented, creative teachers and our most educated, dedicated parents?
Let me answer that with a question: Why would a “less talented” teacher would be able to produce higher test scores than a putatively “more talented” teacher? Unless you believe (as some do) that there is no actual way to measure academic knowledge–a perspective i find somewhat ridiculous–then why do you feel justified as classifying them as “more talented?” Where, exactly, does that talent show up if not in the STUDENT’S performance?
I do not measure my daughter’s math teachers by whether they engage her, or whether she idolizes them, or whether she thinks they’re funny, or smart. I measure them by how much math my daughter learns. Now, if a teacher happens to be funny and smart and uses those abilities to teach her a lot of math then I will love that teacher, and give them my approval. But I find the teaching community often overvalues “engagement.”
guess what? The next level of math, or the next school, or the next course that requires math skills…. those don’t CARE how wonderful the teacher was. (I know, inanimate things don’t care, it’s just poetic license) Those things don’t care how many awards the teacher won, or how many years she has, or how wonderful all the other teachers think she is, or how “creative” she was in class. They only care how much math my daughter knows.
Since that is the world we live in, I’ve yet to see a cogent explanation for using any other factor in judging “excellence” of teachers.
I’ve had some fun teachers, some brilliant teachers, some creative teachers, some boring teachers… not a single one of those categories was linked to how well they taught. After all I define teaching relatively simply: 1) Define what you want to teach. 2) Teach as much of it as possible to the student. Fun classes are, well… fun. But six months later (or in the next level up) what matters are the skills, procedures, facts, and abilities you acquired in class.
So: creative? Sure, perhaps. But as I suspect you think “creative” is linked to “talented,” can you explain how, exactly, it is relevant?
11.
thirdgradeteacher | June 15, 2007 at 6:53 am
Sailorman — thanks for another insightful comment. I know this won’t address everything you’ve raised, but let me comment on a few points:
1. Would I rather produce 100 literate students who hate reading or 50 literate students who love it and 50 illiterate students who hate it?
I’d rather produce the 100 literate students, just like you. But if I had to choose between 100 literate students who hate reading and don’t read after completing school versus 99 literate students who love reading and continue reading after school and 1 illiterate student who would love to read if he could, I would choose the latter. In fact, I’m not sure where I would draw the line… 98 and 2? 97 and 3? Maybe 95 and 5?
In my mind, effectiveness is certainly crucial, but inspiration also matters. The old adage, “A person who doesn’t read is no better off than a person who can’t read” isn’t completely accurate, but it has some truth to it.
2. Why would a “less talented” teacher would be able to produce higher test scores than a putatively “more talented” teacher?
As a teacher who has had plenty of practice giving standardized tests (eye roll), I really don’t believe that the mass-produced standardized tests we give our children are accurate measurements of a child’s understanding. There are “actual ways to measure student knowledge” (using your phrase), but I’m not convinced that today’s mass-produced multiple choice tests that are graded by a computer can be considered one of those ways.
As a result, less talented teachers who choose to spend the bulk of their time prepping students for a certain test-specific format can get their students to acheive higher scores than a more talented teacher who doesn’t spend time on specific test-prep. Yet on any other measure other than that one form of standardized test, the more talented teacher’s students would outshine the others.
I think that’s why Sylvia calls scripting a band-aid approach to fixing a larger problem. Scripting can get some students’ test scores up in the short term, test prep materials can get scores up in the short term, and doing nothing in class but answering multiple choice released items from previous years’ tests can get test scores up in the short term… but at a huge cost to understanding. Our students deserve better than this type of teaching, no matter how effective it may appear to be.
12.
Sailorman | June 15, 2007 at 8:23 am
This is a fun discussion!
thirdgradeteacher said,
June 15, 2007 at 6:53 am
Sailorman — thanks for another insightful comment. I know this won’t address everything you’ve raised, but let me comment on a few points:
1. Would I rather produce 100 literate students who hate reading or 50 literate students who love it and 50 illiterate students who hate it?
I’d rather produce the 100 literate students, just like you. But if I had to choose between 100 literate students who hate reading and don’t read after completing school versus 99 literate students who love reading and continue reading after school and 1 illiterate student who would love to read if he could, I would choose the latter. In fact, I’m not sure where I would draw the line… 98 and 2? 97 and 3? Maybe 95 and 5?
I don’t know, either. We seem to be in agreement, though, in general.
In my mind, effectiveness is certainly crucial, but inspiration also matters. The old adage, “A person who doesn’t read is no better off than a person who can’t read” isn’t completely accurate, but it has some truth to it.
In today’s society, in the U.S., I would argue that the adage is almost completely untrue. As a society, we present an extraordinary amount of information in a reading format. Even the TV news have running “update” tickers these days. Heck, you can’t follow the FDA regulations if you can’t read the labels.
That adage holds true if you’re an English professor I guess, or if you live in a rarefied world where a knowledge of Shakespeare is required. But its not the real world.
2. Why would a “less talented” teacher would be able to produce higher test scores than a putatively “more talented” teacher?
As a teacher who has had plenty of practice giving standardized tests (eye roll), I really don’t believe that the mass-produced standardized tests we give our children are accurate measurements of a child’s understanding. There are “actual ways to measure student knowledge” (using your phrase), but I’m not convinced that today’s mass-produced multiple choice tests that are graded by a computer can be considered one of those ways.
Any measure of student knowledge needs to be global. It also needs to account for teacher bias.
Which is to say, every teacher whose children don’t do well on standardized tests believes that she is a “better” measure of their “real” ability than the evil testing committee.
And we NEED a standard. Without one, we’d have no way to compare teachers, or to compare schools (a fact of which the teachers are well aware.) If you like standardized tests, then I’ll give you the line I’ve used before: the onus is on you to provide a workable alternative. Surely your state teachers’ union, with all those teachers, can write new tests?
There’s also the issue of inaccurate perceptions. I had a conversation with a school admin lately. “Our test scores aren’t great,” she said, “but our children do very well in high school.”
I perked right up. “Really?” I said, “Let me see the data! That would be great to know!”
There wasn’t any. She was operating on a “feeling.” Problem is, every other teacher who feeds children into that high school thinks their children are the “best” ones.
As a result, less talented teachers who choose to spend the bulk of their time prepping students for a certain test-specific format can get their students to acheive higher scores than a more talented teacher who doesn’t spend time on specific test-prep.
I agree this is possible.
Yet on any other measure other than that one form of standardized test, the more talented teacher’s students would outshine the others.
Well, then, prove it. That will change the argument considerably. Do “talented” teachers’ students get better grades; take harder courses; go to more colleges? It’s just data.
I think that’s why Sylvia calls scripting a band-aid approach to fixing a larger problem. Scripting can get some students’ test scores up in the short term, test prep materials can get scores up in the short term, and doing nothing in class but answering multiple choice released items from previous years’ tests can get test scores up in the short term… but at a huge cost to understanding. Our students deserve better than this type of teaching, no matter how effective it may appear to be.
These students were not getting what they deserved BEFORE the scripting was put in place. They are doing better now–by 3% it seems, which is more than 0. Not to be too snarky about it, but are you considering the fact that “traditional” methods were not exactly working? It’s not as if they didnt ttry them.
13.
cityteacher | June 16, 2007 at 1:12 pm
This is an excellent discussion. I will simply throw in the words “Culturally Relevant Teaching”.
Wealthier parents demanding a non-scripted education rich in experience is certainly culturally relevant to their children and wealthier parents have that option, and these programs are highly successful.
Lower-class parents, and students, must accept a scripted program because they don’t have any other options (which is certainly unjust) and it’s true that research have shown that these scripted programs do have more success for this population than, say, whole language instruction. However, these scripted programs are not and cannot be culturally relevant, does not tap into what these students can do, only remediate what they can’t do relative to wealthier students, and is not nearly as successful as education can be.
Example, an innovative hip/hop program visited our inner-city, extremely poor students last week. They invited about three dozens students to come to the stage and dance, to show that every child has a talent they can tap into. By golly but those struggling readers and writers danced like professionals, doing splits and flips in mid-air and putting the visiting dancers to shame. There were little first graders up there outshining the professionals!
Yet, because of the demands of NCLB and scripted programs, these children can never truly explore their talent in the classroom and teachers struggle to engage them in reading and writing and mathematics. There is no place and no time for performing art after the three hours required for language arts, one hour for math, thirty minutes for ELD, and (this is terrible) test practice. Excellent teachers find ways to include the students talents in instruction anyway, but with district-mandated pacing plans, there just isn’t enough time to do it well.
There are entire schools of performing and visual arts that are known as stellar magnet programs. A very select number of children have the talent to get in. Yet, I just witnessed that at least three dozens of our students have that talent and more. Those magnet programs cater to the needs of their students and push their talent to incredible success, and of course is succeed in teaching their students to read, write, and the mathematics as a side note. What do schools like mine do, or can do, for our students besides stifle their abilities and label them as “Intensive” or “Strategic” meaning “not capable”?
So, I feel that it is unjust that education for those with options is culturally relevant and successful, while education for those without options is culturally irrelevant and not nearly as successful as it can be, and when this is done with public funds, the injustice of it becomes a crime.
14.
Ongoingly | June 17, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Hi,
I am an art teacher who has worked in a school that used scripted teaching in a poor inner city K-6 charter school, (100% black and hispanic population) that is surrounded by much wealthier suburbs. What I saw was not a stultifying…it was actually empowering for the kids to be able to chant back to the teacher the math & language building blocks and skills. In this school (and I actually observed in a couple of schools who had adopted a similiar curriculum in 2 near-by cities, one is actually a nationally known school, Amistad Academy) the academic drills were also accompanied by chants (ethics-based) that encouraged the kids, built positive school community spirit and gave most of the children a clearer sense that they knew what was expected of them. There was also time built into the day for creative writing, media, art and PE. Believe me, I was skeptical, I am an art teacher, I did my Masters work at Bank Street College a very progressive project-based education school, but I had a very positive experience at this charter school and found the parents, children and the whole school community to be empowered by this approach.
15.
thirdgradeteacher | June 17, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Ongoingly — Thanks for your comment. I really want to be nice and congratulate your school, but somehow I find your comment quite concerning. Chanting math and language skills back to a teacher is empowering? What exactly, may I ask, is it empowering these students to do?
Cityteacher — thanks for a great comment.
16.
Tracy W | June 18, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Cityteacher - I think it is absolutely lovely that those children are wonderful dancers and performers. But it’s still vital for them to learn to read and write. If they go on to make careers as performers it will be extremely useful for them to be able to read contracts for themselves - and to be able to read directions to the places they are performing. And deal with the IRS. And a million and one other details.
Furthermore, if they learn to read, it opens up the possibilities for future developments. I don’t think it’s the role of schools to say to kids “okay, you can dance, so that’s your talent and that’s what we’re going to develop”. What if they can dance, but really deep down they have the quality to be an first rate mathematician, or history teacher? What are you doing to those kids if you dismiss, at pre-school age, all those skills as a side note? I’m a woman and I have an engineering degree, but one hundred years ago I most likely would not have had the opportunity to get that degree as the view of educators was that that wasn’t a talent that needed to be developed in girls. I think it would be a very bad thing if schools only focused on developing students’ existing talents and ignored the possibilites of what talents they may develop as they are exposed to wider possibilities. At age 6 I was going to be an artist when I grew up, at age 15 I learnt how to build an electric circuit and my life changed. Inner city kids deserve also to be given the fundamental skills to embrace a wide range of careers, not just careers in the performing arts.
Finally, each student, regardless of what career they pursue, is going to grow up to be an adult with all the civil responsibilities that implies. The students of inner schools need to learn to read and to do maths in order to carry out their duties as voters and informed citizens.
I think this is why so many voters think that it is vitally important for schools to teach inner-city kids how to read and basic maths, even if it’s not part of the culture and it focuses on remediating them compared to wealthier students. I have a speech disability and spent years in speech therapy - speaking any language clearly is not one of my strengths and the whole purpose of the speech therapy was merely to bring me up to the levels ordinary kids get without effort. But despite that speech therapy did not tap into my strengths and merely remediated me to the level of other kids, I am still glad that my parents and teachers forced me through it. Like it or not, I live in a world where a great deal of information is communicated verbally, and my life is improved by being able to participate fully in verbal conversations. Equally, inner city kids live in a world where a great deal of information is conveyed in writing, and their lives will be improved by being able to participate in written conversations.
As for Direct Instruction not being what education can be, it may not. I doubt that education research has researched the summit in Direct Instruction. But it sets the bar. If you are going to propose a different education system you should have the data that your education system is going to produce results that are at least as good as Direct Instruction.
thirdgradeteacher - Direct Instruction produced not only kids who can read and do basic maths, but ones who can think (cognitive skills) and have high self-esteem. See this summary of Project Followthrough’s research at http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm. There’s no trade-off between basic skills and serious thinking, serious thinking and problem-solving builds on basic skills.
17.
cityteacher | June 18, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Hi Tracy,
I’m not saying teach only to their talent and not reading and writing. I completely believe that everyone needs to be literate. Let me clarify my point:
There are highly competitive schools that builds on a student’s talent and, yes, teach the students to read and write and be literate at the same time, successfully. Learning to read and write is motivated and aided by the student’s desire to use his/her talent.
How many high-school football star can keep their grades up during season, and then drop school during the off-season?
Talent is not the end-all, be-all, but a huge window through which literacy can flow. And it doesn’t have to wait till high-school football to be used either.
It is unfortunate that with the push for high-stakes testing and accountability, there is no longer room to use student’s non-academic talent to teach the academics, therefore, students who potentially can be the most motivated students languish by the side of the road, bored, confused, unmotivated, and not learning.
This may be a stretch for other teachers in other schools, but for my inner-city school, this is an absolutely true statement.
18.
Sailorman | June 19, 2007 at 11:27 am
I don’t think DI is “as good as education can be,” yet I still support the use of DI here. Let me explain:
It is certainly possible to exceed the results of DI. It is certainly possible to play to students’ academics, talents, musical ability, cultural sensitivity, etc. Those goals are usually reached through more money, outstanding teaching, community support, and administrative support. It can be done. It HAS BEEN done at certain schools, using unusually high levels of focus.
The problem is getting those things; or achieving this focus. Some (like money, or better administrative support) are merely “very difficult” to achieve. Others (like “changing the views of the community w/r/t to valuing education” or “significantly improving the quality of our teachers across the board”) are nearly impossible.
“Nearly impossible” is not the same thing as “impossible” of course. And it’s worthwhile to continue to hold a perfect ideal in our head. However, it is ALSO important to figure out what is effective in the current situation. And in that respect, the best option is often NOT the ideal solution.
DI is, in my opinion, an imperfect-but-better type of solution. It is designed to compensate for existing flaws in the system. I can see why compensating might be annoying–surely it would be better to fix the leak then to get a bucket, right? But if you’re the one under the leak, you’d rather have a bucket.
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Talk About Zero Tolerance&hellip | June 19, 2007 at 9:47 pm
[...] kids’ soccer games because a few parents have been yelling rudely during the games. Or scripting all teaching because some teachers are so bad that it’s an improvement for them to do just do what [...]
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thirdgradeteacher | June 19, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Sailorman — I like your “imperfect-but-better” phrase and referenced it in my newest blog post. As I mentioned there, that belief would (in my opinion)make scripted teaching acceptable if it was used as a temporary fix.
This has been a fantastic discussion so far. Very thought-provoking.
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teachread | June 30, 2007 at 3:37 pm
As an educator of 32+ years I find these discussions energizing! But before I respond I have a question, “What is meant by “scripted” ? I agree that there are many programs that are truly “Scripted”. Language for Learning and Reading Mastery are two examples. However, I often get the impression that any program that is developed by a publisher ends up being labeled, “Scripted”. Let’s define what we are discussing.
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Mathew | July 3, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Good points teachread. One thing that scares me is that our district uses what teachers call a “scripted” program when it’s really not intended to be a script teachers are supposed to read from. Then anytime you suggest some innovative teaching method, teachers have an excuse to say they can’t do it because they have a “scripted” program. I don’t everyone knows you’re not supposed to read from it either.
I can understand why teachers feel tied down but we do have to take control of our own classrooms—script or no. Our students’ problems can’t all be blamed on districts and textbooks.
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thirdgradeteacher | July 4, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Teachread — I meant programs that are truly scripted, not all textbook-based programs.