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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
The relentless march of school choice
It looks as if the newest kid on the school vouchers block is going to be New Jersey. As this newspaper article reports, a key legislative committee has - despite the best efforts of the teachers' union - passed a bill that will make it possible for low-income students to escape their failing public school and choose a private school instead. In the first year, the number of scholarships will be limited to 3,900, expanding to 40,000 by the fifth year.
For most of these kids, the result will be the difference between success and failure in life. Enough said.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Brain-Based? My Foot!
Daniel Willingham is a cognitive scientist who is specializes in his discipline's relevance to education and training. His latest column tackles the applicabilty of neuroscience, concluding that there are four facts that every educator should know.
1. The brain is always changing.
2. The connection between the brain and behaviour is not obvious.
3. Deriving useful information for teachers from neuroscience is slow, painful work, and almost no one has done it.
4. If you see the words "brain-based", run.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Two Schools of Thought
The education world might be divided into two schools of thought. There are those who think that we should build on the knowledge accumulated over the centuries and slowly and carefully make incremental improvements in schools. Then there are those who think that the world is changing so much and so fast that we should jettison the outdated and stultifying practices of previous years, embracing new technologies and possibilities and racing towards the future with arms wide open. This video, produced by the New Brunswick Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, embodies the latter perspective. HT to Educhatter, whose Jan. 18 blog asks whether burying the past is the wave of the future.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
You can’t have one without the other
Dear Aunt Malkin,
Every time there's a newspaper article that is critical of education outcomes, some educator writes in that test scores are not meaningful because they just test basic skills like reading and writing. The important thing, according to these educators is critical thinking. Can I rest easy, secure in the knowledge that even though he is lousy at reading and math, my son is being taught to think critically? Joanne, Toronto
Dear Joanne,
The distinction between basic skills and critical thinking is what Hung-Hsi Wu called "a bogus dichotomy" in this excellent article from our archives. For those without the time to read the whole article, Dr. Wu essentially says that basic skills and conceptual understanding are completely intertwined. Quoting Dr. Wu, "In most cases, the precision and fluency in the execution of the skills area the requisite vehicles to convey the conceptual understanding. There is not 'conceptual understanding' and 'problem-solving skill' on the one hand, and 'basic skills' on the other. Nor can one acquire the former without the latter."
It's kind of like in the old song "Love and Marriage": you can't have one without the other. Here's Frank Sinatra to explain....
Regards, Aunt Malkin
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Meow!
A couple of days ago, I referenced Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Now comes this auto-animation commentary from China.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Brain School
The latest addition to our lending library is Brain School: Stories of children with learning disabilities and attention disorders who changed their lives by improving their cognitive functioning by Howard Eaton. The author is the principal of schools in Vancouver and Victoria that use the approach developed by Barbara Arrowsmith Young to overcome their students' significant learning disabilities. New understanding of brain plasticity and how to go about overcoming weaknesses has made it possible for people to improve their cognitive capacities and achieve academic success. The Arrowsmith program focuses on improving the underlying cognitive problems that make it impossible for some children to learn in regular classrooms. The book tells the stories of nine children as they work through the Arrowsmith program at one of Mr. Eaton's schools, going on to make successful transitions to regular schools. In telling Cody's story, this excerpt (pp. 206-207) touches on the fact that the IQ's of Arrowsmith children improve significantly.
"Through our data-gathering efforts at Eaton Arrowsmith School, we are constant witnesses to intelligence changes among our graduates as they receive updated pscho-educational assessments from other learning centres. Intelligence tests show dramatic improvements in cognitive capacities such as perceptual reasoning, nonverbal intelligence, processing speed, and working memory. Beyond intelligence measures, we are observing improvements in visual-motor integration, motor coordination, visual memory for symbols, and expressive and receptive language abilities. Finally, depending on the type of learning disability, we have also observed significant shifts in mathematical reasoning, reading comprehension, reading speed, writing fluency, written expression, and math calculation skills. There is much research ahead of us. These are exciting times in neuro-educational developments.
"What does it mean for education if intelligence is not fixed? In particular, what does it mean for the field of learning disabilities? First, the entire psychological and educational assessment business needs to be revisited in terms of diagnosing or labelling children with learning disorders or disabilities. For example, if a child is tested and found to have severe perceptual organization intellectual deficits, one cannot simply assume that this is a lifetime sentence. Cody is a perfect example of this. A child can actually improve visual-perceptual cognitive functioning through intensive and systematic cognitive remediation. This will in turn dramatically improve overall intelligence for this child."
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Singing History Teachers)
We brought you the singing science teacher. Now we bring you the singing history teachers. At present, they have posted a total of 50 YouTube videos on all kinds of historical topics, such as Napoleon, Beowulf, the Borgias, and the Spanish Inquisition. The topic of this one is the Canterbury Tales, and it's sung to the tune of the Mamas and the Papas' California Dreaming.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Extreme Parenting
Much reviewed in the media these days is a book entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua who is pictured here with her daughters. An excerpt from her book can be found here. Ms Chua reveals the secret methods of Asian mothers who all turn out stunningly accomplished and high-achieving children. The linked-to excerpt makes for very interesting reading, and typically elicits strong emotions from those who read it. Most North Americans, no surprise, violently reject the "tiger mother" approach. However, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from the excerpt.
Lesson 1 - The Supremacy of Nurture Over Nature
The near-100% success rate of tiger mothers strongly suggests that almost every child, given enough hard work, can be a top performer in almost any field.
Lesson 2 - The Power of Criticism in Fostering Self-Esteem
Tiger mothers don't hesitate to criticize their children when their performance is less than perfect. The children get it that this shows their mothers' total certainty in their strength and ability, and the criticism actually makes children more confident, not less.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Math Challenges Continue
"Tucker Farrar, a Sacramento, California, high school geometry teacher, agrees that students are not given enough time to develop the core math skills that they will need later. Farrar said it "blows his mind" to see how many kids can pass a test and move to the next level without having mastered the math skills.
This month there will be a National Reading Summit in Montreal examining the 'joy' of reading and literacy, but not so much about learning to read. The event is funded by the TD Bank and organized by writers, librarians, and other 'activists' according to the website. There was some discussion in a previous post about emphasis on love of reading v. learning fundamental beginning reading skills. Which are, frankly, two very different things that can happen independently of each other; however, the love cannot happen easily with out the acquisition of the skill.
We see that same problems apply to mathematics as well. Should we be downplaying the mechanics of learning math and emphasize the 'joy' of math? Faithful readers might predict how SQE sees the issue.
According to this CNN report we need to concentrate on the 'mechanics' of math for the same reasons. The challenge for teachers in the upper grades, according the the article, is trying to deal with students who have not mastered simple fundamental skills in the lower grades. High school teachers were interviewed about how they have to make time and find ways fill in the gaps. Some teachers had suggested that some elementary school math curricula try to cover too much material too soon. School for Thought suggests that this may be a big part of the problem.
I think that current curricula try to do too much too soon. We want kids to have higher order skills long before they have a firm grasp of the tools with which to think. Hung-Hsi Wu, professor of mathematics at U. of California at Berkely, called this a 'Bogus Dichotomy':
In mathematics education, this debate takes the form of "basic skills or conceptual understanding." This bogus dichotomy would seem to arise from a common misconception of mathematics held by a segment of the public and the education community: that the demand for precision and fluency in the execution of basic skills in school mathematics runs counter to the acquisition of conceptual understanding.
The truth is that in mathematics, skills and understanding are completely intertwined. In most cases, the precision and fluency in the execution of the skills are the requisite vehicles to convey the conceptual understanding. There is not "conceptual understanding" and "problem-solving skill" on the one hand and "basic skills" on the other. Nor can one acquire the former without the latter.
The same holds true for reading, piano, and golf.
SQE's Stairway to Math math sheets are a good way to practice some of those fundamentals. Parent and teachers can find out about resources for reading and math fundamentals at Schoolproofing Your Child.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Broken Hearts and Minds
Irene Cao, a six-year-old Toronto girl had her leg badly broken in a schoolyard accident a week ago. The school personnel refused to believe she had a serious injury and dragged her, screaming, into the school and then refused to call an ambulance despite her parents' anguished pleas. For more on this story, click here.
This kind of rigid conviction that they know best and callous disregard of students' and parents' pleas for help are all too common in education circles (pace the many fine, caring teachers who no doubt form the majority). However, I have personally talked to more than a thousand parents (and read about thousands more) whose concerns about their children's academic and emotional state were either downplayed or belittled by educators. In many cases, the parents were characterized as chronic malcontents and the kids as troublemakers.
It is very easy to see that Irene Cao was badly let down by the educators at her school, given her physical injuries. But the academic and emotional injuries perpetrated on other children are at least as damaging, and educators' refusal to respond to their cries for help are equally heinous. How can these educators be so cruel?