The Treasure Hunter

Maybe not everyone would agree, but I think that today’s post is good news about education. It’s the summary of an article from the Los Angeles Times that describes a new kind of school at which students who‘ve had difficulties at regular high schools can earn credits to graduate on time and prepare for further education and careers.

John R. Wooden High School is a continuation school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, devoted to students who have been enrolled at other schools but were in danger of not graduating. Instead of taking Chemistry or Biology, Wooden’s students take Environmental Studies or Plant and Soil Science, both of which include hands-on experiences along with academic classes. Also, while the ordinary high schools in the district turn to online credit recovery courses to allow more students to graduate on time, Wooden’s students take the credit courses they need on campus. The school’s philosophy is that many students who have been doing poorly at regular high schools can learn effectively with personal attentions and classes that involve hands-on activities.

In a significant move toward the future, California and several other states have adopted Next Generation Science Standards that focus on making connections between science courses and including scientific investigation as part of each course. Although the state’s primary goal for the new standards is to attract students in populations that are currently under-represented in science, technology, engineering and math careers, and to prepare them for those fields; it also serves students who have not been successful in regular high schools.

Many of the classes at Wooden are held outside part of the time, with students taking care of animals at a farm or attending to plants in an organic garden. As students work, teachers move among them to supervise their activities. They also hold conversations with students, providing technical information to go along with the practical experiences underway.

One concern that educational leaders have expressed about such schools as Wooden is whether they are rigorous enough to prepare students for college. The school offers  courses in Animal Behavior, Plant and Soil Science, and Environmental Studies. All of them meet the requirements for admission to California State University, but only the Plant and Soil Science course is acceptable at the University of California. Students who need additional courses for admission to that university or other more demanding schools, can take them at a community college after graduating from Wooden.

Although academic qualifications are important for students, there are certainly other benefits from schools such as this one. In meeting with students, reporters have observed their positive attitudes toward the work they are doing in and out of classrooms, their good attendance records, and their positive plans for the future.

My reaction to the information in this article is that schools such as Wooden are a significant step toward the changes that are needed in all high schools; first in providing the kinds of learning experiences that serve currently un-motivated students, and second in introducing courses that are more up-to-date than the traditional ones. For some time I have been thinking that the existing high school curriculum needs to change to meet the needs of our world today and tomorrow. When I get my suggestions for that change as complete and realistic as possible, I plan to share them here before enlightening the rest of the world.

Now that most readers have recovered from reading my piece about corporal punishment, which is still legal in schools in 21 states, I will recount some other practices for punishing kids’ misbehavior that can be just as damaging. Those practices, created under the concept of “Zero tolerance” can be anything from after school detention to removal of student privileges or even long term suspension. The punishment for an action that includes breaking the law may also include criminal charges.

On the other side of the coin, I will describe a very different school practice called “Restorative Justice,” which seeks to replace student punishment with explanation, remorse and repair from an offender, and understanding and forgiveness from those who were harmed.

My sources of information are two recent articles from the New York Times, one published on September 9^th of this year and the other on October 2^nd. Although those articles focus on happenings in New York City schools, similar things may also be occurring in other cities and rural areas around the country.

The October 2^nd article describes some of the severe punishments given to children for different types of offenses. The first example given is about a 15-year-old boy in Brooklyn who brought a loaded gun to school in his backpack early in this school year. For that action he was taken by police to their headquarters. Almost immediately, the city’s Department of Education issued a statement declaring “there is zero tolerance for weapons of any kind in schools”. Under that concept three million school children are now suspended from school around the country every year, and several thousand are arrested and charged with criminal actions.

Over the past 30 years “Zero Tolerance” has become the norm for public schools, including charters; at times punishing children for minor transgressions. For example, a 12 year old girl was arrested for doodling on her desk with a green marker and an autistic boy for kicking a trash can. Even though youth violence has declined sharply from its peak in the 1990s, Zero Tolerance practices continue in many schools. Some critics have referred to them as the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Recently, however, attitudes toward severe punishment have begun to shift. Many schools all over the country are trying new approaches to resolve behavior problems. One practice that has drawn attention is “talking through” offenses with students rather than administering severe punishments. At a high school in Houston, Texas, the principal Bertie Simmons required two students who had forged a permission slip to write a paper about what they had done rather than being suspended. Mr. Simons said, “If you just treat people with kindness, it’s far better than being so punitive.“

Even New York City with 1.1 million students has moved away from harsh discipline. In the second half of 2015 suspensions went down by one third from the same period in the previous year. In addition, Mayor Bill de Blasio has suggested removing metal detectors from school buildings because many students feel they are “intrusive and denigrating.” Although that is not likely to happen, many school administrators are exploring tactics that will encourage better student behavior and eliminate the need for strong disciplinary actions.

The September 9th article focused on a particular strategy, called “Restorative Justice” that is being tried by schools in many different places. Specifically, it attempts to strengthen the connections between students and teachers by having them get together after a conflict has taken place and everyone has had time to cool down. The student offender and the offended teacher, student, or school official meet in a quiet place with a moderator and, perhaps, others who were present when the situation took place. They all sit in a circle and listen to each other in turn explain how a particular negative incident affected each of them.

The strategy aims to build basic human values such as community, empathy and responsibility. It attempts to strengthen the personal connections between offending students and their victims through personal discussions under safe and orderly conditions.  The hoped for goal is having the participants agree on reasonable consequences and better behavior in the future.

Although apologies are not demanded, they often emerge spontaneously; not only from students, but also from teachers or principals who now feel they over-reacted to the situation. A problem is not necessarily resolved in such a meeting, but it does seem to favorably affect future behavior on both sides because the people involved now understand each other better.

Unfortunately, the introduction of “Restorative Justice” does not run smoothly in many cases. Often, student misbehavior is so widespread and has been going on for so long, that teachers won’t consider any action that is not a form of punishment. Yet Schools using this strategy have experienced significant positive results: lowered suspension rates, higher graduation rates, and improved school atmospheres. In New York, for example, the Education Department is training its own faculty, and the Schools Chancellor, Carmen Fariña supports the strategy for all schools. Interest in using the practice has also spread to other cities, such as Denver, and Oakland, and San Francisco.

From my perspective, it looks like “Restorative Justice” requires a lot of time and a lot of training for both students and teachers. As the article reported, many teachers have chosen to transfer out of schools where it was being introduced. Clearly, the old ways of student behavior, teacher response, and school practices are firmly embedded in most schools. Teaching everyone on both sides to think and behave in more cooperative and empathetic ways is not a quick or easy task either. It can be done, but it is going to take time, less pressure on teachers to be “all things to all people”, and strong efforts to make all students believe that they are partners in the process of education, rather than its victims.

When we met with friends a few days ago, one of them asked me why my blog was called “The Treasure Hunter” when it had so little good news about education to report. I quickly replied, “ I don’t call it the ‘Treasure Finder,” do I?  I just keep hunting.” Well, today I have two pieces of good news. The first is from Michael Muise,  a teacher and a poet living in Alaska. The second is a summary of a newspaper  report on free tuition for some students at Portland State University.

In this short reminiscence Michael Muise gives us a glimpse into his ways of engaging with students who might otherwise be unconnected to school, reading, and teachers:

Morning bus duty is a time that I love. It gives me a chance to greet nearly all 480 students each day. Shake hands, high five, laugh all in hope of starting the day off right. Mention how much I love a kid’s pair of light up shoes, how I have the same polka dot dress (usually makes them laugh) etc. Today, while greeting the masses, Gr 8 Boy number one, who I gave the Theodore Boone book to wheels up on his long board with an ear but in his right ear and a grin stretching from both ears. He says to me, “I’m on chapter 13. I love it.” And then, proceeds to tell me what is happening in the book. Thinking it couldn’t get any better, a couple of minutes later Gr 8 Boy number two, who I gave a copy of “The Last Apprentice” to, wheels up on his long board with white ear bud in his right ear and a grin from ear to ear. “The book”, he says, “is not so scary the way you said it would be but I really like it.” What a great start to my morning.

Yesterday’s Oregonian reported that Portland State University (PSU) has designed a new program called “Four Years Free” that will allow Oregon residents who graduate from high school with high grades to enroll in a four year college program free of charge, starting in 2017. This program follows the Oregon Promise program, instituted this year, which gives free tuition to students enrolling in the state’s two-year colleges.

Most of the money paid as student tuition to PSU will come from federal Pell grants and Oregon’s Promise grants. In addition, the college says, “If a student does not receive the full amount of the Pell and OOG, PSU will cover the difference.” As a result of the contributions from those sources students would save up to $8,4oo annually on tuition and school fees. They would be responsible only for the cost of books, housing and personal expenses.

PSU sees its program as a strong tool to motivate high school students to work hard and earn good grades from ninth grade on up, and I agree. Far too many Oregon families never even consider sending their children to college because the tuition costs are far beyond their means, and far two many high school students under-perform for the same reason. Our children do not lack ability, only hope.

Although I have written about teaching grammar on this site before, I am going to re-post a piece I wrote for the blog, “Literacy and NCTE”, managed by Lu ann Mc Nabb. Although only a few people wrote comments, almost all them were adamately negative. I answered them as best I could but doubt that I convinced anyone. The teaching of grammar is too firmly entrenched in the minds of many English teachers. What I should have told readers beforehand is that my Ph.D. was in Applied Linguistics and my research was in the teaching of English in foreign countries. To write my thesis I observed in classrooms in 30 schools in Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands. The most successful teachers I saw were not teaching English grammar, but having students practice using the patterns of English sentences they had read in literature or heard in speech. Out of personal pride I must add that I have written a successful book entitled, “Teaching Writing in Mixed Language Classrooms” that emphasises having students use pieces of English prose and poetry as the structural foundation of their own writing.

Many years ago, while visiting a grade 4/5 classroom in the school where I was principal, I listened to a group of children reading aloud the first drafts of essays they had written about various holidays celebrated in America. The children were helping each other to correct errors and make meaning clearer. In reading her essay one girl said, “In the United states we celebrate Christmas by giving and receiving gifts and sing Christmas carols.” Immediately, another girl in the group interrupted her, saying, “That word should be singing.” The interesting thing for me was not that the second girl was absolutely right, but that she was right without knowing why. Neither she nor any other child in the classroom could have stated, “Sentence elements of equal grammatical rank should be expressed in parallel constructions.” Yet, all of them subconsciously knew that principle of English grammar and were able—most of the time—to demonstrate it in their speech and writing.

This story is but one illustration of what happens most of the time in language usage; we construct grammatically correct sentences or correct our mistakes by intuitively applying the rules that govern English syntax. If, instead, we had to apply those rules consciously, they would only get in our way, making it impossible for us to speak or write at all. To construct a simple two-word sentence, such as “He dreams,” requires the application of at least seven grammar rules. Imagine trying to apply them consciously following the rules of English grammar:

To say what I mean, I need a noun phrase and a verb phrase. The noun phrase can be     made up of a singular noun plus a determiner, a plural noun, a proper noun, or a nominative case pronoun. If I choose a pronoun, it can be singular or plural, but it must be inflected for first, second, or third person. The verb I choose can be transitive, intransitive, or copulative. But if it is transitive, it needs an object, or if it is copulative, it needs a complement. In any case the verb must also be inflected for first, second, or third person to agree with the pronoun.

With grammar rules so complicated and hard to use, you may wonder why we have them at all. The fact is that such rules were created by linguists in order to explain language phenomena that had already existed for thousands of years. Most of the grammatical explanations were reasonable at the time they were created, but some have been discredited by subsequent discoveries about language. Others were cancelled out by actual changes in spoken language over time. In all cases, though, the rules were merely rough models for incompletely understood mental processes. No grammarian ever asserted that a grammar list exists in the brain from which human beings select and apply rules as they need them.

Although grammar rules are explanations for what exists in language, not prescriptions for what “ought to be,” they have been misused for a long time. Teaching those rules in schools started with instruction in ancient Latin and Greek, where it made sense because those were “dead” languages. But then those rules gradually slipped into other parts of the school curriculum, such as modern foreign language courses and English classes, where they had no business.

Over the years, the teaching of grammar has continued to be prominent in English and foreign language instruction, leaving less class time or student energy for students to speak, read, or write in those languages. Yet, many perceptive teachers, sensing that grammar lessons might not be all that beneficial for their students, have pressed for research to determine its real impact on learning. As early as 1906, studies were undertaken that attempted to show the relationship between knowledge of school-taught grammar and language skills. Since then, hundreds of such studies have produced some clear and unequivocal conclusions: The teaching of formal grammar does not help a student’s ability to speak, to write, to think, or to learn foreign languages.

It is important for educators to know that, among recent research studies, not one justifies teaching grammar to help students write better. * Although we accept the fact that social, economic, and political forces influence education in many areas, we ought not to allow such forces to outweigh knowledge and reason in determining the school curriculum.

*See Elley, W. B., Barham, I. H., Lamb, H., & Wyllie, M. (1976). The role of grammar in a secondary English curriculum. Research in the Teaching of English, 10, 5-21.

With “Education Week” coming out each week during the school year I get a little behind in reading everything I should.  Only this past week did I read two articles in the August 24^th issue, both of them on corporal punishment in America’s public schools. Today I will summarize those articles and offer my own opinion on the matter.

Until I read two articles on corporal punishment (C.P.from here on) in Education Week , I wasn’t aware that it was still practiced in American public schools anywhere, let alone in 21 states. Since C.P. did not exist in the schools where I was a student or, later, a teacher or a principal. I thought it had been abandoned many years ago. According to the first article I read 21 states still allow C.P., and in 2013-14 more than 109, 000 students were disciplined in that manner. Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma were the states to have the highest number of students so disciplined.

As might be expected, high poverty and black students are the ones most likely to undergo C.P. and they have no legal protection against it. In 1977 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against students in Florida who argued that C.P. violated their rights under the 8^th and 14^th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Since then, families that have sued school districts for abusing or injuring their children by C.P have not won a single case.

Even in states where C.P. has been explicitly banned, some schools that reported using this form of punishment have not been penalized. Either the data was ignored or state officials claimed that the reports were in error. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Education has taken no stance for or against it.  On the other hand, several national education and welfare groups, and teachers’ unions have strongly come out against such practices for quite a while.

The second article I read focused on the situation of a particular student in Mississippi, who had repeatedly received C.P. at his school. The young man, Trey Clayton, now 19 years old, admits that he often misbehaved when he was a student and that he did not protest against the C.P. he received: “I’m not going to lie, I was in a lot of trouble during school. Every time they gave me the option to get a paddling or get sent home, and I took the paddling.” In many places school suspensions can last for weeks, even months.

Things changed for the worse for Trey when one paddling he received in 2011 led to a serious injury. After receiving three blows from the school principal Trey fainted and fell, breaking his jaw and gashing his chin. According to his mother, “When I went to pick him up, my son was spitting teeth into the trash can.”

As a result of his injuries Trey missed two weeks of school and the tests at the end of the semester, which he was not allowed to make up afterward. Consequently, he failed 8^th grade. From then on he became less engaged with schoolwork than before and decided  to transfer to another school.  Ultimately, he dropped out of school altogether. Trey still lives with his mother and has two children of his own, who are one and two years old. He says that he hopes to earn a GED and go on to college. The article does not say whether or not he is employed.

After the disastrous C.P. Trey received, he and his mother launched a lawsuit against the school district, claiming excessive force against him and that the school disproportionately targeted boys for such punishment. Around the same time another student from Trey’s school also sued the district for excessive C.P.  Unfortunately, both plaintiffs lost their cases.

It must be noted that few parents in this area have voiced any objections to their children being disciplined as Trey and the other boy were. Apparently, they believe that schools have the legal right to do so and that corporal punishment is preferable to suspensions, which could last for weeks or months.

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I’m pretty sure that Ed Week intended to outrage its readers with these two articles and that it succeeded. I suspect that even many residents of the states where C.P. is still practiced were among them. Beating children with a paddle at school or at home is not part of the American image today. Nevertheless, I forgive Ed Week for playing on our heartstrings. We all needed to know what was happening in so many U.S. states and is likely to continue for who knows how long.

But aside from those facts, most educators, researchers, parents and educated people are against any form of school punishment that may injure a student physically, psychologically or socially. Clearly C.P. fits into all three categories. It is a powerful negative experience likely not only to produce more misbehavior from the receivers, but also to persuade them that they are bad people and their classmates that they should be shunned.

Although I don’t want to get into the full range of positive alternatives to school punishment that I am familiar with, I must insist that they are well known by educators and documented by research.  Such alternatives should be taught to all teachers and principals and adopted universally by schools. If we truly care about producing well-educated, productive, and responsible citizens, we must ensure that all students are treated humanely in our schools.