SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Gone Fishing

Choosing Blindly

A largely-ignored study on the importance of instructional materials was released in April. It makes the point that “there is strong evidence that the choice of instructional materials has large effects on student learning—effects that rival in size those that are associated with differences in teacher effectiveness". Furthermore, “whereas improving teacher quality through changes in the preparation and professional development of teachers and the human resources policies surrounding their employment is challenging, expensive, and time-consuming, making better choices among available instructional materials should be relatively easy, inexpensive, and quick.” 

Amazingly, very little attention is paid to the development and use of effective instructional materials. In Ontario, for example, the province's list of approved textbooks actually omits some of the best - for example, decodable readers. I wonder why.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do

The title is a quote from Epictetus, one that I have always thought was very apt, and it is a good lead-in to an article in the latest American Educator. The article is long and leisurely, but it is definitely worth reading. It makes the case for teaching Latin, and its main argument is that Latin and Latin literature inspire students to excel. I am grateful to my own knowledge of Latin for many things, like an enhanced vocabulary, the ability to think logically, and good spelling and writing, but it would never have occurred to me that my Latin studies helped me to know myself. Very interesting!

Reading: The sine qua non of education

In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan has launched a class-action suit against the state of Michigan and a Detroit-area school board for violating students' "right to read". more 

I have no idea what the suit's chances of success are, or what would be accomplished if it won (it's all just taxpayers' money, after all), but I do like the acknowledgement that children have a basic right to learn to read. As the ACLU executive director states: “A child who cannot read will be disenfranchised in our society and economy for a lifetime". 

Too often, reading gets lost in the shuffle of  a myriad of educational objectives. But really, if schools were to teach all of their students to be really good readers, the students could pretty much take it from there. If you can read, you can learn everything else.

The Architecture of Education

I've just received Daniel Willingham's new book When Can You Trust the Experts?: How to tell good science from bad in education, and I will be reviewing it soon. But I was very struck by this passage (pp 221-222).

• I think architecture serves as a better comparison field than medicine does. Architects, like teachers, usually have multiple goals that they try to satisfy simultaneously. Safety is nonnegotiable, but architects may also be thinking to a greater or lesser extent about energy efficiency, aesthetics, functionality, and so on. In the same way, some goals for teachers are nonnegotiable - teaching kids to read, for example - but after that, the goals are likely to vary with the context In addition, architects make use of scientific knowledge, notably principles of physics, and materials science. But this knowledge is certainly not prescriptiive. It doesn't tell the architect what a building must look like. Rather, it sets boundary conditions for construction to ensure that the building will not fall down, that the floors can support sufficient weight, and so on.
• In the same way, basic scientific knowledge about how kids learn, about how they interact, about how they respond to discipline - this knowledge ought to be seen as a boundary condition for teachers and parents, meaning that this knowledge sets boundaries that, if crossed, increase the probability of bad outcomes. Within these broad boundaries, parents and teachers pursue their goals.
• Take as an example a scientific principle that I have emphasized elsewhere: factual knowledge is required for critical thinking. That is, you can't teach kids to think critically about history or about science unless they are learning (or already know) facts about history and science. Oddly, some people take this principle as a directive to sit kids down and teach them lists of facts via teacher talk and textbooks. It's nothing of the kind. For one thing, any cognitive psychologist will tell you that a list is about the worst way to llearn a bunch of facts - that it is much better to connect them into something meaningful. But what's more important is that the principle - gotta learn facts - says nothing about how they ought to be learned. It could be through teacher talk, a book, a project, a collaorative wiki, and so forth. The principle sets a boundary: if you try to get kids to think critically about history without their knowing any historical facts, you'll fail.

Student power

Following on from yesterday's post about Ontario's problems with educational unions other than the teachers' unions, here and here are two articles about another possible contending group - the students! One of these articles is a spoof and the other isn't - can you tell which is which?  H/T MW

Sunday at the Movies (CUPE)

To watch this video, as CUPE rattles its sabres, is almost to feel sorry for Ontario's premier - as you realize how hard it is going to be to take the meat back from all the education tigers in the province. It's also interesting to note the CUPE spokesperson's repeated references to how it's not about the money but rather for the good of the students. For the likelihood of this being true, I refer you to a previous posting. But before you read it, I wonder if you would be interested in this terrific bridge I happen to have for sale really cheap...........  H/T MW

New Mexico releases A-F school rankings

Here’s another state heard from. The governor of New Mexico, a state which ranks near the bottom in education achievement, is determined to do something about it. Competition works.

Sometimes a picture isn’t worth a thousand words

Dorbooks is an excellent blog about all aspects of teaching beginning reading. Click here for a sample posting - this one concerning the use of pictures in readers for beginners. Although the Balanced Literacy/Whole Language crowd make a big fuss about attractive storybooks with delightful illustrations, it turns out that beginning readers would likely be better off if their readers had no pictures. As a reading tutor who used illustrated readers from time to time, I often noticed that my students were forever losing their place as their eyes raced all over the page to get clues from the illustrations. They did much better if they had only the printed words from which to get the meaning.

Doing better by our children

This week’s Economist has three articles on education (Charting a Better Course, Testing the Limits, and A 20-Year Lesson). 

The first article is perhaps of most interest, as it rather conclusively suggests that giving schools independence is the way to go. But the last article has a dynamite conclusion, reproduced here. H/T FG

• In rich countries, this generation of adults is not doing well by its children. They will have to pay off huge public-sector debts. They will be expected to foot colossal bills for their parents’ pension and health costs. They will compete for jobs with people from emerging countries, many of whom have better education systems despite their lower incomes. The least this generation can do for its children is to try its best to improve its state schools. Giving them more independence can do that at no extra cost. Let there be more of it.