Invitation to speak to parents

The Invitation to speak... The telephone rang. It was 12:10 p.m., Thursday January 18. "Could you come to a PTA meeting in February and talk about school reform?" Sure. I offered to put my CDs and DVDs in the mail for evaluation. As an SAT tutor, my primary focus is (1) reducing stress in students (who don't like tests). I also try to get (2) parents to participate in the test-preparation process (3) I attempt in my tutoring to give my students multiple ways of teaching to reach the multiple styles of learning. A SECOND REQUEST: "I'm inviting you to speak to our PTA meeting in part because of your focus on multiple learning styles. So I compiled my teaching CDs and DVDs, especially the DVD about brain research (The Brain Game). ================ Then I sat at my computer and wrote about "Passions" and how we can help students find their passion... ========== How can we create a place where our children can find and explore their passions? What is the Secret Behind the Met Center in Rhode Island? Hmm. It sounds like any other school. “High Standards” for most of us means “We use expensive textbooks and expect our students to do onerous homework.” At the Met, the standards are for rigorous work in the student’s area of passion. “Advisory” for most schools might mean “we have a guidance department” and “we help students find possible careers.” In the Met, the advisory is the class and the classroom. The advisory appears to be the heart of the program. The advisory system links one adult to 15 students and that adult (the “advisor,” but most of us would call that adult the “teacher”) builds a three- or four-year relationship with the student. There are other teachers, but one advisor guides the student through a mix of subjects. The students look at issues in the advisory, focusing on quantitative reasoning (math), empirical evidence (the scientific process) and communication (language arts). Confused? I was when I first heard of this system. I thought, “How can one teacher teach all subjects?” That’s the wrong question. We should be asking, “In my school, how can a student get a sense of direction when he or she has to deal with at least 5 different teachers each year, 20 teachers through high school? Where is the common thread binding all of these subjects in the student?” At the Met, one adult cares about (focuses on) one student at a time. Five pillars of Big Picture Schools (as interpreted by a math teacher who visited The Met in Providence, RI, part of the Big Picture schools association) 1 Multi-year relationships -- The teacher stays with the same students for three or four years. The teacher teaches more than one subject. In the case of the Met, a high school in Providence, RI, the teacher stays with the students for all four years of high school. 2 The teacher is a facilitator. Teacher = Advisor = “how can I help you?” The teacher coaches the student to choose activities to cover skill areas (language skills, quantitative reasoning, etc.) rather than special subjects, like trigonometry, algebra or chemistry. One of the teacher’s prime activities is finding suitable mentors for the students. 3 Tests are by exhibition. A “stand up” demonstration of understanding is valued above a written test. The students take the state’s standardized tests and other written tests, but the school focuses on the exhibition, which is the product of at least nine weeks of work. 4 Learning through interests – the internships (set up with the teacher) are selected by the student. Academic learning is filtered through the student’s interests. Students interact with mentors. 5 “I’m more than a letter in the alphabet.” Evaluations are made by narratives, not by a letter grade. The teacher can afford time to write two pages of narrative about each student during the grading period because the teacher has only 15 to 20 students to meet with over a nine-week period. (I observed an “advisor” who met with students throughout the class day, asking for updates on on-going projects. This sort of focus can come from a narrow focus of one adult on a small group of students.) A COMMON OBJECTION to SMALL SCHOOLS: “Our schools are focusing on reducing class size, not school size. We seek to provide a student-centered environment.” RESPONSE: Let us emphasize the difference between being a student in a small school and being a student in a small class in a large school. Bill Gates hammers the point of small schools, where kids feel safer and everyone knows your name. It doesn’t matter what size the “student-centered environment” is – when I walk out that classroom door, if I can dissolve into 800 or 1000 other bodies, then I’m not in a small school. I don’t get the small-school benefit that Dennis Littky writes about and that Bill Gates is pursuing with his foundation. How can this “Met Center” model be applied to middle schools? Or to large high schools? >> more hands-on learning >> more interaction with outside mentors >> introduce grading by narrative >> “one classroom schools” – one teacher for several subjects. (See WARNING below.) >> less emphasis on performance on a written test >> expand the standardized test to allow alternative ways of “performing understanding.” >> Every student writes an autobiography of at least 75 pages or videotapes and makes a film bersion of an autobiography. That exercise helps students know where they came from and involves interviewing parents and relatives: “What did I like to do when I was a child?” – Questions like this help to bring into focus what their passions are. Howard Gardner, developer of the Multiple Intelligences theory, makes it clear that there are many ways of learning, so there should be more than one way to assess a person’s mastery of a subject. Some people are inspired speakers and actors, but have a difficult time writing. Some people are good at building teams but do poorly when acting alone. In the real world, these people are called “managers” (because they know how to delegate). They don’t have to know how to do everything well. However, schools test students in a way that guarantees that most people who are good in one area are going to feel terrible about themselves because they can’t perform up to a “standard” in another area. In the work place, employees don’t have to perform in a well-rounded way. That’s why there is division of labor in an organization. Kids in good schools are losing out, too: What makes me cry daily is when I hear a kid describe how he or she was before, and then how they found their passion and it changed their life. It's really about the environment that we built to help the kid find his passion. That comes from having respect for the kid and giving the kid time to learn. Half of our great work is because the kid got there when the kid grew up and got more mature. We were just patient. But in most cases, the kids never get to, they get stopped before they did something stupid or they weren't interested. By having the faith that the kid will learn and by struggling with that through the years, we can see how far they've come. Our secret is that we have the patience and the belief that anything is possible. Whatever you need to help you get passionate about something is what we do. it's the true belief in the student. Every school says that they respect kids. If you give kids work that is not important, you're not respecting them. I think my frustration with the world is that in many suburban districts where parents move to send their kids and the students come home with their As and Bs, the parents are satisfied, but they never look deeper, so they think those are good schools. They have the highest SAT scores, they have the most kids going to Ivy League colleges. Those kids are losing too. They are not dropping out because they are playing the game. When you ask them, "Have you made any decisions in school? Do you care about anything, are you passionate about anything that goes on during the day besides drama club or football after school?" They're getting the short end. They aren't allowed to get engaged with their work and go deeper. "My kid did well at that school." Yeah, but where could your kid really go if your kid got to work with a doctor in 9th grade, following her around, and really going in depth? Dennis Littky ---------------------------------------------------------------- WARNING: I have mentioned one of the key aspects of the Big Picture school to several teachers: “The advisor teaches all of the subjects.” I rejected this idea at first and I have grown to accept it. The reactions of other teachers are consistent: “How can one person teach math, history, a foreign language, chemistry, biology, physics, and English Literature? Where is the rigor?” “How can one teacher be good at all of those subjects?” “I was terrible at (math, history, whatever). I would make a terrible advisor in that system.” Two suggestions: a) Is it so terrible for the student to sit with an adult who has a fear of math or a history of negative results with science? If the student lacks a knack for algebra, who better to teach flexibility and optimism than an adult who failed algebra in 9th grade? b) It might appear impossible to convince a teacher’s union to encourage members to teach a spectrum of subjects instead of “their favorite” or “their special gift.” For some students, an English teacher who hates math might be the perfect adult to guide the student toward understanding quantitative reasoning. A science teacher who can barely write an essay might be the best writing coach for some students. Students needing additional rigor can be assigned to other teachers/advisors for specific needs. In short, The Big Picture method has pushed me to look at alternatives to “how I was taught.” Compiled by small school advocate S. McCrea Call with suggestions 954 646 8246 mistermath@comcast.net www.FindASmallSchool.com Please send me your comments. Potential topics (for discussions at PTA meetings) ============================================ How to create a video portfolio for the college application The Visual and Active Method of Test preparation (using the Multiple Learning Styles) The Vornle Method for College applications (text on www.TeachersToTeachers.com) Brain Research for Parents and Teens (what is the "brain game"?) How to bring electronic books into the classroom How to add technology to classes and the home Put something educational on your child's iPod A review of Multiple Learning Styles. What does Bill Gates say about school size? An invitation to an expanded role for parents and mentors in schools (according to Dennis Littky) Summary of Littky's book "THE BIG PICTURE: Education is Everybody's Business"