The title of an article in the October 29 issue of Education Week stopped my mindless flipping of the pages: "Five Ways Schools Can Kill Learning." Right? As an educator, you have to stop to read that article.
Dr. John D. McNeil is a professor emeritus at UCLA. While Dr. McNeil seems to believe that schools do not kill education intentionally, there are five particular harmful practices in many American schools. I'm quite certain there are more than five, but his five are pretty significant.
The first is this: "Placing students of a given age together in a classroom, and sequencing classes by age as grade levels." I'm not sure some of the developmental theorists often touted in teacher preparation programs would agree with McNeil, but he boldly states that kids don't develop in the same way at the same age. I think most parents would agree with that. And I think many practicing teachers would agree with that.
In a CITE journal article published in 2000, T. G. Carroll asks "If we didn't have the schools we have today,would we create the schools we have today?". Good question. Would we have grade levels the way we have them today? Or would we, recognizing that many students have varying capabilities in different content areas, create schools with significantly more flexibility?
For example, would we let the 8-year-old, a 3rd grader by today's standards, work at capabilitylevel and use grade levels only as that kind of an indicator? So if that 8-year-old, Max, read at a 6th grade level, did math at a 4th grade level, struggled with science at a 3rd grade level he would work with other students who were able to read at a 6th grade level, do math at a 4th grade level, and work in science at a 3rd grade. And then, if with that focused educational approach Max were able to become more confident and learn more efficiently with focused and targeted instruction that matched his abilities, perhaps he'd be able to accelerate his learning in his weaker areas and "move up." Or maybe, just maybe, after 12 years of school, Max might graduate reading at a college level (and maybe even have completed a few college English classes), doing math at an 11th grade level, and struggling less but still struggling with science at a 9th grade level.
States would very definitely have to revisit state standards, but if Max struggled that much with science, then it stands to reason that Max is not destined to go into science. Perhaps standards help define a certain level of competence rather than what students really need to know by grade x. That is, to be a reasonably well-educated individual capable of contributing to society in some fashion, students need to know at least some number of things in some number of categories in each content area. Perhaps the standards would vary based on whether or not a student thought he or she was inclined to go into a particular field of study for a career.
So then Max might be able to achieve the minimum in science required of a reasonably well-educated individual who is capable of contributing to society, but because he was not able to achieve the next level or levels of science standards, he should rethink that career in medicine.
The scale of ability and performance would be different. Let's say, for example, that students must have a minimum of 9th grade capability in any (or most) subject areas to graduate from high school. Regardless of what they think they want to do with their lives because they're high school kids and will change their minds a few dozen times. Students who graduate with an 11th grade capability or higher likely have a strong aptitude for a career in that content area. And students who graduate having been able to take college-level classes in a content area clearly have an affinity for something in that content area.
AYP would have to be measured differently, but maybe it's all of the students tested at the grade level of each content area in which they are learning. It may be that a few kids who are working at an 8th grade English level will learn that they really should revisit or retake 7th grade English.
This sort of a school would certainly be a challenge for teachers which mean we would have to further rethink teacher preparation programs. But the idea intrigues me, so I'll have to think about it a bit more.
5 comments:
Clearly, to me at least, Dr. John D. McNeil, emeritus professor, is resurrecting a learning model that American schools have dabbled with since John Dewey. I have been a student in these types of situations, and I have been a teacher in systems such as this. They were not necessarily BETTER, IMHO, just DIFFERENT. There are some downsides to this scheme.
What really caught my eye in your posting was your discussion of AYP.
When you said, "AYP would have to be measured differently, but maybe it's all of the students tested at the grade level of each content area in which they are learning. It may be that a few kids who are working at an 8th grade English level will learn that they really should revisit or retake 7th grade English."
IMHO, this is real differentiated assessment of an individual's learning. Why would we expect students to be competent at a particular developmental level when they are clearly not capable of doing the work?
When a student has an IEP, we measure their improvement based on their current level of achievement compared with their previous level. Why aren't we taking best practices from Special Education and putting them to good use with all students? I think this is a missing KEY to the issue of the current NCLB woes.
While I believe in accountability, there is no way that all children in the third grade will achieve at the third grade level in all skill areas. To me, the individual child's confident growth at their own level of performance is a critical point we forget. Schools would then be evaluated on the number of students whose current achievement level improved from the past year.
In education,it seems to me, we shouldn't be in the business of making clones or lowering expectations for higher achieving students. We should be looking at the vast array of simple techniques that teachers and schools can implement to help each student improve their academic achievement over time, based on their innate capabilities in each area.
Very thought-provoking notion, you have proposed. It is also very do-able. Thanks for sharing this idea.
Love this post; I've written on it myself more than once. Maybe if we keep pointing out the ineffectiveness of our educational system's addiction to grade levels, we can move our schools down the road to recovery.
I think abolishing grade levels is a wonderful idea. I have never thought about education in any other way. I think students would greatly benefit if they were grouped by ability and not by age. Thank you for opening my eyes to another possibility to education.
If we have learned to walk, talk, read, write and moved on to
learn more, not knowing we'd have to go through 13 year levels
of school, is it possible for us to learn everything we need, to
start college at 12?
SAMS is an academy, not a school. It sustains a non-tiered academic program without the
existence of grade levels but a continuous and spontaneous progression of content or subject or course.
Classes are grouped not by grade levels but by academic content.
Academic content that prepares them to learn what general college courses teach in actuality.
If Jane has learned and mastered Invertebrate Biology she can ascend to the Vertebrate Biology class, next semester
- No grade year level involved.
Or if she has mastered the trends in the Periodic Table she can ascend towards the Inorganic Chemistry class
even if she is 9-years old. Take note though, that 9-year old school children do learn 'surface' Inorganic Chemistry in
schools, however sketchy and incomplete and labeled generally as just 'Science'.
SAMS actually follows the college format of not being attached to a group class for years but a subject class for a
semester. I strongly believe that this format actually solves the problems of the complexity in class progression
and teaching effectiveness brought about by the presence of extreme variations in abilities of school children in a
class, be it of 'mainstream' schools or of schools for special education. With extreme variations in the
learning matrix, effectiveness in teaching and in learning becomes disruptive and less productive for
both the students who are ahead and who are lagging behind.
'Pull-out' sessions from 'mainstream' classes are likewise disruptive for both types of students, and raise serious
questions on the emotional impact of the ones 'pulled-out' and the ones left in the classrooms.
Grade acceleration, in the most honest realm is not currently preferred or being avoided as much as possible by
'mainstream' and special education educators even if the academically-advanced child is more than able and willing to
accelerate to the next grade level - Simply because educators view one whole year of acceleration
as a big leap when it should never be selfishly viewed in that manner.
We must do a truly unselfish move, a deeper, more meaningful and beneficial stratagem for only the well-being of
our children, for our students, for their intellectual well-being, for no one else's and no one else in mind but them,
for nothing of bureaucratic goals and reasons, in order that everyday, they can reach their full potential, through
our unselfish, honest and truthful commitment, dignified with integrity.
Truly, Malcolm X was not limiting when he said, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
I further believe that course or subject progression, regardless of reasonable age and
non-bordered by grade year levels, inspires students to learn and master content
because they are ascending to the next level of content itself, and not to the next year of grade level.
Learning and mastering content will be viewed as an accomplishment rather than viewing an elevation to
the next grade year level as The Accomplishment,
regardless of how much of the subject matter was learned.
In essence, SAMS curricula is a direct descendant of the general college required courses.
After having reached Level 4 Reading, Writing and Composition, Basic concepts in Chemistry, Biology and Physics and
all Mathematics modules prior to Algebra, yes, it is very possible for children starting at around the age of nine to learn
what college freshmen and sophomores actually and truly need to know in preparation for general college courses.
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