​After years as a teacher and administrator in urban, rural, and suburban schools, I’ve never felt surer that the current education model needs transformation. The evidence is everywhere: charter schools, vouchers, ubiquitous cell-phones, lack of funding, failing physical spaces, low pay, increased student absenteeism, misinformation, book bans, and the continued reliance upon drill, kill, and test/curriculum. In the interest of not only identifying a problem, but proposing a solution, I have an idea for restructuring a students’ learning: Schools need to be redesigned as a student-as-client model, with all aspects of development--academic, social, emotional, and behavioral strategies--weaved into the school day rather than the continuance of an industrial template we’ve used for a hundred years. Are there tradeoffs? Sure, but not if we develop a philosophy prioritizing the development of individual children that is measurable and observable. 

Let’s build upon the idea of school readiness which means a child is ready to learn because she has reached the appropriate, social, emotional, and behavioral milestones for K-1. We tend to forget how important it is for children to have these skills which includes the patience to learn, sit and concentrate, be confident enough to make friends or ask for help, follow basic directions, and have appropriate skills for play or group interaction. Notice how what they come to school already knowing how to do, like writing their names or reading basic words, isn’t the focus of readiness. Since these students are a pleasure to teach, they learn quickly. They are excited to be in school—what more could we want?

Unfortunately, these skills are taken for granted as the early years go on, to the point where some districts no longer have recess after grade three, or teach handwriting—a fine motor skill—to save “teaching” time. Instead, the educational bureaucracy decided that the grind of drill, kill, and test was essential for the mastery of upper grade concepts. Sad, isn’t it, that their early interest and excitement for learning wanes over time? The academic grind of mastering many two-dimensional tasks stifles their interest in problem-solving, creativity, and patience. What if we built learning around social skills, and focused on executive functioning instead with as many authentic learning opportunities as possible built in?  

What if we created a school day with three classes, ELA, social studies, and an elective focused on technology or art and then, the next day, math, science, and physical/health education. The purpose of the time frame allows for a class “set-up” of what’s to be done and then have “lab time” for hands-on investigation. In fact, the basis for investigation could be a version of the scientific method where we ask our students a question or let them pick from more than one and have them follow that method to learn. Here’s an example: we provide grade 6 students with pictures and annotated documents (by teacher/media or source) of US colonial times and ask them to determine how colonists survived in the new world. This question takes into account the many ways the community would come together (e.g., food, clothes, shelter, laws, trade, norms, weather, farming, dairy, and safety) to support each other. A lesson like this allows for social, emotional, and behavioral opportunities as well as building executive function around problem-solving. 

Some researchers argue that social and emotional learning is more important, especially in childhood, as a predictor of future success than academics (“Social and Emotional Skills Are More Important Than Academics,” Pathway to Success, 2019), so we should consider a type of daily survey, something simple that asks students when they first arrive how they are and how they hope their day will go, then later, how the day went. Simple enough, and could be done on computer--if available--in no time. A small survey could build a longer history of how each student arrives and the finishes each day, an important bit of information for the teacher and school support staff. 

Now, I know the first thought is, but there’s so much content to cover... how can we do this? Here’s a quick anecdote. A wonderful English teacher colleague of mine once said, “There’s just so much to teach in English. I’ve spent almost two weeks just on commas!” I agreed, but driving home I thought, are commas that important, especially when no one spends much time writing anything other than worksheet responses or homework questions? She was right, there was a lot in the curriculum to teach, but shouldn’t we decide based on the students walking through the school door what’s more applicable? Is time better spent writing and seeing where and why commas are needed? It is. It’s an authentic way to learn a lesson that won’t be forgotten any time soon.

Finally, every class evaluation of a student should include a “process” grade or summary, highlighting the effort and care used to reach a conclusion. Here’s a process rubric. We’ll never know what children are truly capable of if we don’t create an open-ended process for teacher planning, student learning, and wholistic evaluating. Once we leave the drill, kill, and test grind behind, we can better teach to let students meaningfully learn.

Thanks for reading.

Oddly enough, as I prepared to write a new post, I saw a viral parent rant at a school committee meeting about how schools and teachers were, and I paraphrase, only supposed to teach our kids academics so they can get a good job and be productive members of our society. I thought, is that all the parent wants, for a child to get a good job and be productive? Pretty low bar, as teachers and schools can—and do—so much more. Is this what the emphasis on all students being trained to be junior college ready and excessive testing have conditioned parents to think and want?

Schools should, and do, help children grow in academic, social, emotional, and behavioral ways as well, but academics has its own lane whereas the other three tend to go hand-in-hand. A behavioral outburst is often linked to an emotional or social issue or change, but when it’s academic, not so much. Maybe the student is lazy, disorganized, or has fallen too far behind over time to catch up with peers. Imagine, too, (according to the Science of Reading research) that the average classroom has 7 out of twenty-one students in a grade 6 class who struggle to read or process, write, memorize, or communicate, what then? Not all students qualify for special help or services. And what of the top three in the same class who are bored most days--is that okay so long as they eventually become “productive”?

If only life were that simple…

My definition of productive includes all four of the traits listed above, in a community environment highlighting all the teachable moments that come with them as students navigate through their school years. We just can’t have a student body meeting to stop bullying. We have to demonstrate kindness and identify failure as a way to grow, not belittle, in every day interactions.

So, I was sidetracked by the parent's rant, but the next post will look at the authentic school and its emphasis on community and student growth.

​A review of materials on the Science of Reading via professional articles and curriculum websites describes the program as primarily for grades K-6, but also for special educators and literacy specialists to grade twelve. It’s a wonder, though, how the lack of reading ability is recognized through high school for probably thirty percent of those who are barely or below proficiency, but the program is primarily for designed for grades K-6: Unfortunately, the complexity of texts grows exponentially beyond grade six when compared to the ability of struggling readers to follow along. Again, a misconception made here of reading is that once a child can read words, comprehension, fluency, and sophistication of thought will naturally follow. But history teaches that it doesn’t. Let’s consider what works.
 
Engaged readers have to be created by exposure to text that encourages them to become independent and intentional; we have to find them where they are and provide books they can enjoy—this is a process that should be available through the years in all content areas. Some schools at one time used a daily twenty minute, “Stop, Drop and Read” period to model the importance of reading for pleasure.
 
Unfortunately, the push for testing to evaluate learning against the corresponding—always “new” --curriculum, takes time away from that initiative. It’s well-documented that non-readers of any age will respond to books fitting their interests. My own classroom experience radically changed when I incorporated twenty minutes of silent reading into the daily class routine. Reading a book changed their attitudes about school and their place in it. Many went from potential drop-outs to seeing themselves as having the ability to succeed. Reading for pleasure is documented to make youngsters more empathetic, imaginative, grow cognitively, and long-term longitudinal data suggests it provides them with access to social mobility: (https://www.edutopia.org/article/benefits-reading-pleasure/).
 
So why hasn’t it been fully adopted? If you’re a teacher or principal you know why. Instructional time is entirely scripted to curriculum and methodology that, unfortunately, hasn’t produced results.
 
We also have to stop relying on content heavy texts as the driver of classroom instruction. When teachers are asked to list the essential core concepts to be learned in a course, they tend to recite what the curriculum and textbook are focused on, rather than the needs of the learners in front of them.
 
Many compassionate teachers leave the profession because the constant move to turn the textbook page frustrates them and their students. It’s like a motivated salesperson expecting to do well each day only to find by the end of the week that she is selling something no one wants. In class, this translates into students who don’t want to learn and teachers having to deal with the resulting non-learner behaviors. Why not have teachers at every grade and content level cull multiple copies of subject matter books—fiction, non-fiction, biography, and autobiography--that their students can choose to read and then spend fifteen minutes a class to read them? Surely, student lead discussions about their book choice can enhance the learning of the content. The blowback, of course, has been that this hamstrings, “instructional time,” but does everything need to be taught and tested?


Obviously, what goes on in a students’ minds when afforded time to read is much more consequential than teaching all the ways to decode text to non-readers. Do we sell tires to people with don’t own cars? Braces to those with straight teeth? Yet we persist in covering loads of content most of which we never remember, and committed to testing that tells us what we already know, students who are not school ready struggle all through the years. Truly, what is testing meant for—to determine student learning, what was taught, teachers, administrators, community support, or all?
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Let’s drop testing and the scripted curriculum that goes with it. Let’s make schools real learning communities by rethinking what’s best for students and teachers instead of standardized, swaying goalpost standards. How about putting the millions that go into testing, curriculum, and teacher training into reconstructing schools as a true learning community? In the next post, I’ll try.