Ch 17 of 20: Charter Schools

In our desperate search for a solution to the education crisis, we agreed to believe in the phenomena of the charter schools, popping up left and right, as the answer.

Charter schools strive on what they are NOT, comparing to district run schools. They are NOT the huge monsters that serve thousands of students. Their teachers are NOT on a contract for the rest of their life. Budget distribution is NOT under a strict scrutiny, thus can be applied to current needs. There are NO layers of administrators between teachers and principal, making parents’ access far easier.

Sounds great, doesn't it? It is like sending your student to a private school but without having to pay the huge tuition fee… right?...not quite…

I have seen tens of charter schools in my area, maybe more. I think I remember only one or two that at least left me with some tolerable impression.

My first experience with a charter school was working at one for an entire year. Wonderful teachers, dedicated administrators, OK students, caring parents… but one thread connected all the problems we faced - lack of professionalism. Staff members were good, smart and dedicated people, but not professionals…

We did not have a defined academic plan or clear goals, nor did we have a specific procedure for discipline. We had no textbooks for two months, and worse – no facility for four months, not until January. In the meantime, we were guests in a church hall, with only thin patricians separating one classroom from another, with flying objects filling the space between the classrooms. Everything was a ‘Work in Progress’, even though the school had been operating for several years.

To make things worse - by March all the school funds were exhausted and we were seriously considering shutting down the school and dispersing our students… 

After that experience, I swore never to work at a charter school again, and to spread the word about charter schools whenever and wherever I could… But reality bites, and after working at district schools for a while, or worse, not working at all, you start wondering if charter schools are that bad after all…

I was, since, interviewed by numerous charter schools. Many of them did not hire me not because I was not qualified, but because I was over qualified; credentialed, experienced, know my rights. It would be hard to make me work extra hours and get paid half of what the public district pays… For jobs that I did get an offer I just could not say yes. I just knew that I will be miserable for the whole time, and yet, knowing myself, would never quit midyear… (Not even if not paid, as before…)

I admit that I still apply to charter schools from time to time, but I can affirm that I never found one that I thought would be right for me…

However, as a substitute teacher, contracted with a respectable agency, I do work at charter schools quite often.

Charter schools, often, choose weird places as their site; I have seen charter schools in strange locations, abandoned buildings, with old ugly structures. I was in a charter school that was right beneath two major freeways intersection. I did not even think of the dreadful air pollution. What bothered me most was the possibility of falling cars off those freeways and smashing into a crowded classroom…

On one of my substitute assignments at a beginning of a school year I was sent to a charter schools in the east side. The area was not bad, the facility was oldish but quite OK, there was even something homey about the small yard in front of the main office and the classrooms surrounding it. I have changed my mind about the homeliness when I entered my classroom. It was not darling anymore. This was a classroom with only few, old, chairs, and even less, decorated with graffiti, desks; for sure not enough for all the students soon to enter the classroom. Something else bothered me as I looked around, but I thought it might be the unappealing look of the bare walls. Then I realized what was wrong – there was no whiteboard or even blackboard… Later on, I discover a spot on the wall that, apparently, was used as a whiteboard, but it was so small, and its quality so poor, that it was unrecognizable.

But this was not the worst part… The bigger problem was that it was the first week of the school year and the school did not have yet… teachers. I am serious! This was a small school that should have employed about 12-15 teachers. On the day I was called to substitute, there were 9(!) other substitute teachers signed up! And this was during a time when hundreds, if not thousands, of teachers were frantically looking for a job… I talked to few of the substitute teachers and they told me that they are trying to get hired at that school but the school would not give them an answer… My guess? The school was looking for a real cheap labor, and knowing how many teachers were out of job, they were waiting to find the people who will be willing to work for the minimum wage they had in mind…

Another charter school, to which I was sent recently, prides itself as a science and math academy… Well, this should be good, I thought. This is probably the model of school that, in our mind, the public education system should have …

I arrived about fifteen minutes before the start of the school day, and with the help of some students located the “Main Office”, the main institution in every public school. I was completely surprised to find it locked. A pleasant looking teacher arrived few seconds later and said “oh, it’s close”, without much surprise, and continued on his way, and I was trying to search my mind for possible instructions that might have directed me to a different destination rather than the main office …

Few minutes later the secretary had arrived and asked if she could help me. I told her I am a substitute teacher and the name of the agency that sent me. Apparently she was not aware of the need of my services, and disappeared for several more minutes to get the information. I was then sent to a science class to replace a science teacher. I am not a science teacher but with instructions and material to occupy the students I can manage to keep a class full of 8^th graders busy.

On the desk I found a big folder with instructions for each day of the week. I was slightly alarmed by a note that asked me to administer a final test and then grade it. I didn't think I was quite qualified for that, but I kept reading the instructions. Then, all of a sudden, I realize that these instructions were intended for the previous week, given by a responsible, previous, substitute teacher… At that point I realized that I was on my own, and tried to seek help from the… students.

The students told me that their teacher had been out for over a month. She was pregnant with twins and probably would not be back after she has the babies. They had, so far, 4-5 substitute teachers. When inquired on what chapter in the book they are, they could not remember, and of course suggested watching a movie…

I returned to the same school a week later, hoping things have changed for the better. From students’ reaction (another substitute???), I understood that not much had changed. A permanent teacher was not yet hired, but few changes had been made to accommodate the situation. A psychology elective class was replaced by a new elective - computers. When I asked where the computer lab is, I was told - at the same classroom. “So where are the computers?” I asked. No one could answer that. In the meantime the class was a “study hall”, fancy name for “doing nothing” class. Other science and math classes became general “tutoring” classes (more “study halls”), and the only substantial class left out of six-period day was algebra …  

The case of charter schools is about public funds, originated in our tax money, intended for public education. Charter schools divert resources from the well-established district, to their un-established institutions. They namely “steal” students from the district, depleting its finances. District schools have a very strict guideline, good or bad, and ample of well-educated and trained academic staff; administrators, teachers and aides. Charter schools offer a very poor replacement.

Charter schools, in many cases, are financial expenditure, generated by business people rather than educators. (Education, apparently, is a very profitable business, benefiting from holes in the system). Unlike district schools, they are not subjected to the same scrutiny, and are given years to prove themselves and become accredited. In the meantime, and even after, they have a very flex guideline…

As much as I disapprove the way the district runs, the type of events described above would never happen under district domain; classrooms without the bare minimum, unsafe locations, a school without teachers… As an educator, it is painful for me to watch credentialed and experienced teachers losing their jobs to unqualified personnel, who work for poorly managed charter school, for less money, and are at the disposal of anyone – administrators, parent, students…  

Do parents blindly believe that their students get more in charter schools than in the public school system? Did they know, for example, that their charter school of choice had started the school year without teachers? Or that their student’s science teacher in that “math and science academy” had been away for two month without a permanent replacement?

Until someone absolutely proves me that students are doing better in a charter school, not because it is located in an upper-class area, and not because it refuses to accept certain type of students, and not because it is quick to send certain students back to public district - I am very skeptical! I do hope that a responsible politician will soon look into it… In the meantime - parents - never assume anything! Do check your premises, at least from time to time…

For more - Read : "The Death and Life of the Great American School System", by Diane Ravitch

Ch 16 of 20: Language Deficiency

Another learning inhibitor that is part of classroom reality, and is originated in student’s background, is language deficiency.

In many parts of the state, and the country, (including the school district where I work) deficiency in the language is a key problem. A large group of students who are defined as English Learners is only part of the problem. A source of a bigger crisis is a population who communicates in English but doesn't master the language beyond its everyday conversation’s vocabulary. The trouble is not even mastering the English language to its deeper layers, but rather mastering any language to a level that connects to abstract nouns and terms. This obstacle is not necessarily rooted in immigration status, but rather in socioeconomic status.

The language deficiency has an absolute effect on learners of literature, social studies and humanities in general. It has no less effect on subjects like science and mathematics. If a student had never heard terms that are used in these subjects he/she will have hard time connecting with them. When words like ‘acceleration’ or ‘friction’, for example – are new to a student, in English or in foreign language, he/she will have hard time creating a mental picture of their meaning, and thus will have difficulties understanding, assimilating and applying the concept.

A subject that all math teachers have trouble teaching is geometry. This field requires language connection to the terms, as well as mental ability to picture it. If ‘diameter’ or ‘perimeter’ is not already part of student’s vocabulary, he/she will have hard time grasping the idea. Skills that are expected from middle, or even elementary school students, are not mastered by so many high schoolers; they struggle with basic computation, but, worse, with their concept. Terms that are meaningless for them are memorized the same way an odd cell’s name in biology is stored; for a short time, to be immediately forgotten after the test.

It is possible, then, that in order to address this problem, a new theory that is now widely used, was conceived. The new idea consists on presenting young students with advanced concept, so that later on, at high school, concepts will be familiar and thus easy to recall and ready to build on and expand with new knowledge.

This theory might have justly earned its merit being well researched and well accepted by educators, but in my experience does not serve its purpose. I feel that instead of advancing knowledge, we limit learning by teaching the same material over and over, skipping other important topics. I notice it when I, periodically, cover social studies classes, but I can, for sure, testify for its harm in math classes.

In mathematics, the progress of the curriculum is almost comic. I had my doubts before, teaching high school students and being dismayed by their poor knowledge of arithmetic, and fractions. But it was not until I taught middle school grades 5^th   6^th  7^th and 8^th math, that I realized how poor the program really is. I was obligated to teach exactly the same material, though using different, grade appropriate, books, to each of my four different grade levels… No kitting… I didn't even have to change the titles on the board from one grade class to another...

When students start their “official” algebra course, they had already been exposed to algebra concepts for years. They had seen equations and already know how to plug a value instead of a variable. No wonder, then, that they conclude they know it all, and listening is a waste of time… The problems start when equations get more complicated and they need to learn new, correct, methods to deal with them. Now a strong resistance starts to build: “but we already know it!”, “that’s not the way our teacher had taught us”, “you are just complication things”. Not only that I waste time defending my competence, but students’ adjustment is much harder.

Algebraic equations are only one example. The sad fact is that while teachers at elementary and middle schools are forced by the education planers to teach algebra concepts – they don’t have enough time to focus on what middle school learners must know before advancing to algebra. They don’t have time to strengthen basic arithmetic concepts, and fractions and decimals are completely neglected. I can’t even count the times that I had to explain the difference between 1 over 2 and 2 over 1 to algebra, geometry and even algebra 2 students.

The harm in introducing high school material too early is twofold. Lower grade teachers don’t have time to concentrate on basic math skills to create a sound base. But even worse - early introduction of a concept that is beyond students’ mental readiness can be either too confusing thus creating math-phobia, or can form bad habits that will be hard to change later. High school teachers are juggling their limited time between those two challenges; closing gaps and uprooting bad habits.

The solution for the language disconnect is not to introduce complicated concepts before their time, to students who are not yet ready, but to intensify and enforce language skills in the lower grades, presenting the terms in their everyday usage, as well as investing massive resources in reading comprehension; enriching vocabulary and developing reading skills will prepare students for higher math, not premature algebra.

Links:

http://www.nctm.org/uploadedFiles/Professional_Development/Focus_of_the_Year/Equity/08%20Lessons%20MacGregor.pdf

http://www.merga.net.au/documents/RP532005.pdf

http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v8n1/green.html

https://www.dpi.state.nd.us/title1/project/Acd_Lang.pdf

Ch 15 of 20: Reading and Imagination

Our education quality level is rooted not only in the educations system itself, but also in other grounds, like the era in which we live; what students bring with them to the classroom.

A phenomenon that, unfortunately, is disappearing from our everyday, especially from the young generation’s life, is reading. Reading used to be a fun pass time not only for the educated elite, but for every person who could read. It was not unusual to find a poor boy sitting on abandoned stair case in the middle of the city, reading a book that he got from the library, or even stole from another boy.

Reading, regrettably, is not considered fun pass time for youth anymore. Yes, there are still some adolescents who read but they belong, mostly, to elite group of AP students, made to read by their English teacher or their parents…

The price for the decline in reading is the weakening of our ability to use our imagination. When we read a book our brain creates a picture of places, events and people, and we thus develop the ability to see in our mind situations that are not part of our everyday reality, and objects that are not tangible.

You may ask what does imagination have to do with academics, especially with mathematics, and I will claim – everything!

Abstract ideas are part of every curriculum, unquestionably math and science. Students have to apply their imagination to create a mental picture in order to be able to understand and analyze a process, and use their brain to complete the picture and draw conclusions.

  

This same process is happening when one reads a book. You imagine the character, imagine the surrounding, the events, and in your mind predict and complete the situation before you know the entire story.

With TV and computer screens, being the main source of information and entertainment nowadays, images and audio are constantly feeding our senses, leaving no room for the brain function of imagination. We are losing the important independent thinking and processing because we don’t have to complete any mental picture. Every bit of data is being chewed up for us before being fad to us.

There are other reasons for the decline in the use of imagination in young people. We live in a culture that unstructured time and uncontrolled activity for kids is a waste of time. As soon as a toddler can sit and respond to interaction, he/she is signed up for a class, tutored by a relative to identify the alphabet, and strictly monitored in the playground or the assigned play group… What happened to free time? Free play? Kids’ games of their own innovation and rules without parents’ constant interruption? How about just sitting outside in a rainy day, looking at the sky and giving names for the imaginative shapes that the clouds form…?

An article that I read (link is attached) talks about the word “play”, how the meaning of the word had changed over the years. Play used to be an unstructured free activity that did not involve any toy… nowadays “play” means an organized game or a ready-made play tool, created especially for a specific kind of activity…

That brings me to another source for creativity despair in our children; the nature of the games and toys. When, and where, I grew up, before Toys R Us had hijacked our imagination by providing every possible toy to place in our game space, we played with wooden blocks and simple Lego-like pieces. With them we created our own imaginary toys. We could build a house and a bench, trees, furniture, and even good guys and bad guys with their weapon. We had to use our imagination to build objects, that are now can be found in any toy’s store. It is hard to envision anymore, what could be missing from those over loaded shelves. I even have a nightmare of a toy company that employs innocent children, pay them with piles of candies, and pry on any spark of imagination that they might have… (Sitting them in a one-sided mirror room, with microphones, and record any flash of imagination as soon as it is born, and immediately sends it to its developers…)  

Another favorite plaything that resulted from what might be called “deprived childhood”, was a simple compass, the one that has one sharp edge, and a pencil is inserted to the other side. I used to make wonderful creations of circles intersecting circles, and with crayons colored the different sections. When I started geometry I was already proficient in handling the compass, I knew what a radius was, and I also knew that if I drew a circle and placed the sharp edge on the circumference without changing the radius, I could mark six points that can be connected to make different shapes. I also noticed that as hard as I tried, the last point was never quite aligned with the starting point. It took me years to realize why, but never the less I had that experience; I could already visualize circles, rectangles and triangles...

How can you explain congruence and similarity concepts to youngsters who cannot create a mental picture of a triangle in their mind? They are not incapable, but they lack a skill that used to be widely accessible, imagination! Its absence prevents them from developing a higher level of thinking and creativity.

When reading is replaced with ready images and tangible objects, imagination development suffers… When a student cannot create a mental picture of a field with fence around it, he/she will graduate from high school not comprehending the difference between area and perimeter… And when a young person lacks the ability to process an abstract concept in general, he/she will be limited in intelligence and vision…

Links:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/con/summary/v017/17.1.saiber.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/is-technology-producing-a-decline-79127

Ch 14 of 20: Parents' Rights

Back in the days, the worst-case scenario following bad behavior was parents’ conference. If a parent was contacted and asked to meet with the teacher, it was a complete misfortune for the family, the student, and his/her social life.

My parents, unlike most parents at the time, were at least willing to give me a fair hearing of what had happened. Most parents would not even listen, and automatically side with the teacher. It would be considered a disgrace for the family if their student so misbehaved.

This type of parents’ reaction does not exist anymore, especially not in second-generation American families. It may still be true for families who recently emigrated from different countries, especially developing countries, where education and teachers’ authority is still taken quite seriously…

One of the reasons for this phenomenon results from parents losing authority with their children. They may be too busy working multiple jobs and thus being away from home, or they may start losing respect from the younger generation due to language deficiency or cultural background.

I have met so many wonderful, willing to help and supportive, Hispanic parents, who valued education and wish their students to succeed, and yet are completely powerless in their attempt to influence their child.

Situation changes for the worse, unfortunately, after families have been here for a while, and are swayed by a sense of entitlement; feeling that the system owes them. They neglect their responsibilities and lay it all on teachers, and school in general. From this group of people I often hear a blaming tone. They, often, refuse to take responsibility for their student’s behavior and blame teachers and administrators. Some even flatly declare that they are not going to do anything about their misbehaving student…

And then there is a third group of parents, parents of students who are fairly motivated, disciplined, and quite well mannered. Usually they live in affluent areas, and go to respectable schools. These are the schools where teachers have fewer problems with students but many more problems with parents…

Teachers who work in those schools tell me horror stories about parents screaming at them for not complying with their demands regarding procedures, homework assignments, and most commonly – grades. These teachers deal with parents who treat them like kids and try to control their teaching and decision making…

Imagine a corporate environment where a boss has to answer for employee’s parents’ demands regarding special treatment for their son or daughter…

Consider a situation where a worker is directly responsible before the law, not only for things he/she has done, but for things done by somebody else. A case where not reporting, or not even noticing, misconduct done by others, may carry a severe punishment that could cost him/her job, and even imprison...

Compare the education profession to other careers, considering the layers of “bosses”, so to speak, to whom teachers have to report. There is the department head, the administrator in charge, the principal, the school district officials, as well as other special supervisors and advisers, to name few.

…Add to that 200 students, and double this number of parents and guardians… all bossing the same teacher…

Ch 13 of 20: Students' rights (no obligations...)

Somewhere along the way of making education mandatory for all youngsters, it stopped being a privilege and became an entitlement. Everyone under a certain age must go to school whether student and parents want it or not. It became the law.

I am not against enforcing education on children and young adult, and for sure, I am for a system that prepares adolescents to become functioning citizens, with education, skills and social values. What I am against, though, is forcing every young person to go through the same mandatory system. There should be different systems for different needs and wants of youngsters and their families.

Even if every child was capable of becoming a rocket scientists or a brain surgeon not everyone would want to become one. The most talented girl at my school, whose father was a medicine doctor, and her mother highly educated as well, wanted just to learn manual crafts, and fortunately her parents supported her.

What I see at schools every day are classrooms full of students who are not only completely disinterested in education, but also determined to spoil the experience for everyone else. They are using every tool in their arsenal to resist any positive progress; refuse to cooperate or participate, disrupt teacher and students and tease the ones who show interest. They destroy educational materials that are handed to them with no cost, and leave graffiti on books and trash on school property.

I can’t describe the frustration of trying to teach, aide, or even just observe such a  class; watching the phenomena of students wasting, on purpose, the one most valuable asset, given to them for free – education, paid by each of us. It aggravates to see the time and resources wasted; tax money paid by all of us, including their parents, earned with hard work; Spoiled opportunities – theirs and others!

My frustration and anger often boil to a point that aggravates administrators. I understand that kids will be kids… They don’t see the whole picture and lack the maturity to recognize what is good for them, but - how do we allow that? How do we let few irresponsible youngsters to spoil education for eighty percent of school population? How do we let them control us, educators, kind and giving individuals, whose only fault is trying to help them? Why are we so helpless against them?

I heard it so many times – “…but you are the teacher! It is your job to control the class!” And my reply is “How? Using what tools? “ What do you say, or do, to a  student who is completely candid about his disinterest in school?

This is not a new problem, what new is our inability to deal with it. We, school staff, cannot force students to learn, their parents have very little influence, the system has neither authority nor alternatives, and law suits are looming over everyone who dares say “fine, this is your choice…” Politicians are making decisions for school administrators; officials who had never been to a classroom…

Before I started teaching I worked as a teacher aide. Helping in different classrooms I was amazed to learn what teachers are facing every day at their job. I must admit that in most cases I blamed, in my heart, the teachers. I thought the chaos was a result of a poor classroom management and bad teaching methods.

I vividly remember one specific class where the teacher was standing in front of the room, lecturing to only two students; a brother and sister who just emigrated from Iran. They were the only ones who showed interest, or maybe just had good manners… The rest of the students were throwing paper balls, talking, and listening to loud music. I would walk around the room, trying to get students to focus their attention on the teacher and work with them individually. I even had some successes with a sharp African American boy who showed interest and ability (but unfortunately got involved in a fight, and was expelled from school, despite my pleas…). I would come home and tell my family about that one bad teacher, that though I liked him personally, was, in my opinion, a poor educator…

Over the years, I often thought of that teacher, and the longer I stayed in education, the better I understood him. It was not long before I was ready, in my frustration, to do just that – teach the only two interested students and ignore the rest. I was so discouraged by the inability of the system to deal with what he used to call “those low performing students”, who disrupt learning and teaching, that I justified him.

… I saw him again years later. It was by a pure coincidence. I lost a job due to low enrollment and was offered a temporary assignment at a different school, replacing a teacher on a sick leave, for an unspecified length of time…

The name of the teacher sounded familiar, and something about the way he worded the instruction made me suspect that this is the same person. Few days later when we spoke over the phone he did not remember me, yet I could swear it was him… It took few more weeks before we met, but when we finally did, sure enough, it was the very same teacher, dealing with the same frustrating situation. Trying to teach unmotivated, low performing students, in a low performing school…

I could tell him now how much I sympathize with what he was going through back then, and now. Apparently he was hoping I would stay and replace him for the rest of the semester but when he asked me my reply was “Thanks! But no, thanks!”. Unfortunately he was forced to come back, despite of his health condition … but as bad as I felt for him I did not want to stay beyond the two weeks I committed for. There was nothing I could do to improve the learning environment, and I knew that eventually I will be the one to be blamed for that… It was a losing game…

You see – since education became an entitlement, it carries only rights! Students have the right for an appropriate education; best teachers, best programs, best materials. If not - they are entitled to sue; every sixth grader can, and will, tell you that! However, they don’t have to come to school ready; bring supplies, protect the ones they are given, respect property, teachers and staff. Their only requirement is to show up at school! And yes! Schools are very particular about that; it means money! But what about other obligations like carrying a pencil and a piece of paper? Displaying positive attitude, attempting to learn something, or at least – give just respect to the people who try to teach, and to the ones who try to learn?

Every time I hear complaints from parents, backed by a smart advocate, I want to scream. I want to ask – have you been to a classroom? Have you seen those students sitting with a big, empty, backpack, with absolutely no school supplies? Have you noticed those students who completely ignore instruction, deliberately disrupting the lesson? They don’t learn because they don’t want to learn! They should be held accountable for that! Teachers are not responsible for the failure of the education system! It is the system itself that fails those reluctant students by not making them answerable for what they do, or don’t, know!

Why do schools have to provide students with every piece of supply is beyond me, but at least students should protect and respect what is given to them! Instead – they complain! Give them papers they ask why they are not lined, and make paper balls! Give them pencils – they break them, but not before complaining that they don’t have erasers… Give them erasers – they through them at each other! Providing something for free, without attached liability, is not only expensive and wasteful, but also against every value and principle that we are trying to instill in our youngsters. It is education without educating!

So, next time when you ask your student what did he/she learn at school today, ask yourself what did they NOT learn at school! What basic human and citizenship values, like respect, responsibility, care for property, appreciation to resources, among others, did they not learn!

Ch 12 of 20: Bell Schedule

Frustrated teachers and administrators are trying to figure out what is wrong with their school’s performance. Low performing schools, like many of the ones I see, are banging their heads against the wall trying to break the standardized test score barrier to get their school off the hook. They research methods other schools are using, calling staff from different areas in a desperate attempt to find out what is the secret magic that brings their scores higher.

I was sitting in those meeting many times, listening to my colleagues arguing for one method or another. One person is claiming that a certain technique worked so well somewhere, resulting in a higher score, and someone else presenting just the opposite, arguing that another school, using that same technique, sees no progress.

This is the time when I am waiting for that innocent child, who sees the facts as they are and speaks out the truth… to cry “The Emperor is naked!” pointing to reality that everyone pretends not to notice… The fact that, for example, this wonderful, high performing school, is in a privileged area, with well educated and well to do population, and long waiting list that efforts losing few trouble makers, and thus pressuring students and parents – to meet their standards or hit the road…

When I am assigned to a new school and I want to get a feeling for its academic rank and culture, I always check its bell schedule…

My good colleagues at the west area schools enjoy a relaxed bell schedule. They start at 8:00, have about 50 minutes-long classes, enjoy nutrition recess, unwind for 35 minutes at lunch break, have a nice 7 minutes passing time between periods - the same schedule that they have had for 20 years…

The stressed out schools start before 8:00, have no nutrition recess, shorter lunch, mean 4 minutes passing period, and the greatest “fix-it-all” - block scheduling…

If you have taught math at a low-performing school with block scheduling you know what I mean… I am not saying it is a bad idea all together – it might work for art, music, PE, even social studies, but not math, for more than one reason. To start - there is no way you can keep students’ attention for more than 40 minutes, in the best case; 20 minutes to teach the lesson and 20 minutes for practice, collectively and individually. After that they lose they concentration and become restless and impatient. So – how do you fill 90 minutes, or worse, 110 minutes?

Yes, you can show them a movie, talk to them about current events, teach them about the world (my favorite passing time activity…) but the fact is still the same – there is that much material that you have to cover each week, month, semester.  Since you now meet your class only 2 or 3 times a week you have to give double dose of the material in each meeting. It means that after the first 40 minutes, with maybe a short break, you have to do another round of 40 minutes teaching the next section. Learning math is challenging enough as it is, and to have it absorbed and ready to be applied – it needs to be administered in a bite size… Dealing with two mouthful quantities to be swallowed, digested, and processed is quite impossible!

School age youngsters need to move around, spend energy, play and refresh their minds before being ready to absorb more learning. Long periods in the same seat is almost impossible for most students, especially for middle schoolers. The notion that more is better, resulting in maximizing the in-class minutes, especially in low-performing schools, is ineffective, and even counter-effective! More and more researches are showing that recess is not only what students want, but also what students need in order to perform well. Studies had proved that outside, playground, time, helps students refresh their minds, exhaust their energy and prepares them for refocusing their mind on learning. Furthermore – researchers found a direct positive correlation between exercise and academic performance! Countries that excel in education level, like Finland and some Asian countries, have shorter periods and longer, and more often, recesses!

Unfortunately, education leaders believe that fixing our failing schools depends on how many classroom minutes we provide our learners, and the tighter the schedule is, the better education we deliver. Not surprisingly, then, that low performing schools squeeze seven periods a day, some in block schedule, have short or no breaks, and very brief passing periods. They administer remedy without a sound proof that it cures the ailment, and ignore the fact that while no real evidence supports that more is better, volume of data claims that actually less is better!

In analyzing the consequence of bell and block scheduling, we weigh mainly students’ achievements, of course. We do forget, however, to consider its effect on teachers. Teachers’ comfort and well being has a direct impact on their job effectiveness, not to mention those basic human rights of a working individual…

Let’s talk about lunch break, for example. Lunch breaks are never long enough to enable teachers to recharge before the next section of the day. When the bell-ring announces lunch break, the students charge out instantly, but the teacher has some closing to do - erase the board, turn off electronic devices, pick up few papers from the floor, maybe replace the materials - getting ready for the next period, and very often exchange few words with some students for one reason or another; precious minutes that are taken away from his/her recess time…

At one school we had block scheduling with 110 minutes long blocks, a nightmare for every math teacher in a low performing school… The morning session included two consecutive blocks with only 7 minutes between them… If you were not one of the lucky teachers with a conference before lunch, or the bathrooms were not next door, you were doomed to work four hours without a bathroom break…

At another school we had a 30-minutes lunch break. Because of school size, and the fact that bathrooms were not available at the bungalows where I taught, I could never get to the cafeteria until almost the end of the break. By then the cafeteria workers had already remove most of the food items, closed the cashiers and most infuriating - emptied the coffee pots. If there is something I desperately needed at that time, is a good cup of coffee, but as I, at last, reached the promised cafeteria, I would watch with dismay how my precious coffee is being poured down the drain…

Other schools don’t even have faculty cafeteria so teachers have to waste precious lunch minutes standing in line with the students (yeah… they do get priority) and then waste more time marching to the teachers’ lounge… not much fun…

It almost feels like the whole school time machine is aimed at limiting teachers’ comfort and causing them a constant race against time. If you have a conference period with important business to take care of, you are asked to cover another class. If you get to school early because you need to do some prep work, someone needs your help. If you plan on leaving early – forget it! And if you get to the cafeteria, desperately needing few minutes to eat and relax, they reject your $20 bill that you carefully remembered to bring (cash only! no checks or credit card!)

So, stepping to a school, not knowing much about its academic level, culture and intensity of teachers’ pressure – check out the bell schedule… This is a good indicator for school’s stress level…

Links:
The Secret Behind Finland's Super Smart School Kids? Recess
The Effect of Recess on Academics
The Rebirth of Recess

Ch 11 of 20: Middle School

Muppet: Nobody Cares About Me

The Middle School phenomenon has caused, in my opinion, more damage to the education system than any other “progressive” reform. It had emerged several decades ago, here, and later in other countries, from a previous system dividing the elementary / high school system into three stages, adding a Junior High School. The Junior High concept was created to escalate students’ academic preparedness for the higher grades by breaking away from the traditional elementary school, and provide thus more rigorous studies, as a better readiness for higher education.

It was in the early seventies when academia people started to wonder if it is right to enforce strict academic measures on early teens, and therefore limit their time and ability for creativity and socializing. Combined with new psychological theories a new trend surfaced that resulted in easing academic demands on young adolescents, trying to create a warmer transition from elementary to high school. 

Some countries around the world, and few districts here in the States, however, stayed with the Junior-Senior concept, and even smaller number of organizations kept the eight –four, elementary high-school, system long after it was pronounced “old fashion”. Those few “survivors” can smile now and say “See - we told you…”

Luckily, I grew up in a country that, at the time, kept the 1-8 elementary and 9-12 high school system. Back then my young country was one of the world’s leaders on the education rank list, and it produced a genius generation of engineers and inventors in every field. Its place on the list dropped miserably after adapting some “progressive methods”, one of them is the middle school system… It is not my place to debate what caused the education level drop, and what part of it is due to adapting the middle school system. All I can do is describe my own experience…

I can testify to having the best time of my schooling life during those last three years of my elementary school, especially those critical 7th and 8th grades. We all grew up together, started to mature together, and made room for the emerging stars among us. We didn't have to re-invent a social structure and fight our place in it. We were comfortable in our world of being the seniors in our little kingdom, and thus our minds were free to absorb and progress. Now, years later, I realize that my best childhood and adolescence friends are those who were part of my world during those precious years of 12 to 14…

Raising my kids here, and sending them to the local, well acclaimed, schools, I watched with dismay their experience going through the middle school horrid system. My daughter, an ‘A’ student, shy and delicate, spent most of her lunch breaks by herself, and was trying to get involved in any school activity that could save her from a social isolation. My son, who could have been an ‘A’ students had he not been caught in the middle-school madness, was desperately trying to prove the cool guy in the new, chaotic, social structure in order to socially survive…

Being the foreign, new comer, that I was, I did not grasp the harm in the middle-school insanity until years later, too late, by then, to mend the scars that were left.

Yet, still not fully comprehending the whole picture, I decided to become a middle school math teacher, believing that my skills will be best used teaching arithmetic and those ill-understood concepts of fractions, decimals and percentages… It was only when I actually started teaching that I realized how impossible it is to teach anything in middle school, let alone mathematics...

What’s amiss in middle schools?

It is absolutely the wrong structure, at the wrong age…

The first time I was faced with a system that required me to choose classes and move from one classroom to another I was at my freshman year of the university. We were all so confused that we thought we will never be able to graduate… and most of us were over twenty by then… Of course it is not quite the same, yet I can’t imagine facing a similar system at the age of eleven, after being under the clear, strict care of the elementary school organization for five or six years…

Pre and young teens are at an age when they need structure and direction more than ever. Unfortunately, right at that fragile age we open the gates for them and let them free to go to an uncharted territory. All of a sudden the cushioning and protection given to them at elementary school is let go, and the rules abruptly change on them; Moving from one classroom to another, with anonymous new teacher in every class, and hundreds of new faces almost every period of the day.

The social structure that was carefully balanced for that many years is undone exactly at that sensitive time when early teen boys are becoming young men and girls are turning to women. The old social arrangement does not apply anymore and every young soul has to fight for a new place in the pyramid. No wonder that this is when alcohol and drugs are creeping their way into the young people’s life.   

To counter-act the breaking of the social structure, and to support peer cooperation rather than competition, group work became the common practice in most middle schools classrooms. Students sitting in groups of 3-6, ideally learning together and helping each other… Sounds great? The idea is good. Does it work? For social interaction – maybe, for academic progress – not quite…  The middle school concept that was trying to ease students’ academic stress and leave more room for socializing and creativity, affords them complete leisure and laziness.

Over the past several years, the middle-school system is desperately trying to re-invent itself, as more and more researches are proving its failure. Schools are trying to have one teacher teaching several subjects to strengthen teacher-students connection. A typical combination is one teacher for math and science, and one for social sciences and language arts. However, due to budget and logistics limitations, other, strange, combinations exist like English and math or English and Science …

For that purpose, block scheduling is often prescribed, where students spend two hours, without a break, in the classroom; a nightmare for teachers and students…

Then there is the “Home Room” or “Advisory” period. In most high schools it means 5-10 minutes added to first or second period, dedicated to messages over the laud-speakers and some administrative errands. In a middle school, however, this special period is dedicated to teacher-students quality time, sort of bonding together, time for general education, on top of administrative errands. This period lasts between 30 to 60 minutes every day, but unfortunately is an absolute waste of time. When asked what they usually do during this time, students’ answer is always the same – "Nothing!" In the best case a teacher would assign a word-search or a game… Really? Nothing better to do with 40 precious minutes? No real learning? No discussions? Nothing to broaden those limited horizons? And if nothing better, why not add 5-10 minutes to each of the other academic periods?

Then, just recently, another “academic” activity was added… Breakfast In Class… another mind blowing invention… Why not have students come 10 minutes earlier and be served at the cafeteria, where it belongs? Why waste class time! Not to mention the trash, the disrupted learning atmosphere, the questionable added duty for teachers, the waste of food that big part of it finds its way to the trash can!

I don’t want to further expand on the middle school system. Educators understand the problems and try to provide small changes within the limitations of the system. Teachers are well aware of the situation; some deal with it somehow, but many leave to seek a job in a high school, or just quit the education field all together.  

Why don’t we go back to the old system? Politics… and money of course… someone has to admit failure and someone has to pay for it…