The Treasure Hunter

On yesterday’s night, almost all of the members, crowded into the seats of the large auditorium waiting to make an important decision about who would be our new leaders, which is an important position in our community. We were all excited to select the people who were most capable to manage our needs and interests in our future.  So shortly  after the event opened, several of them stood in front of us to explain their interests and abilities. I hoped to hear information about the new jobs and what people would do to be elected, but unfortunately the speaking machine was completely ineffective, and we could hear nothing about what the important people said. In addition, some of us listeners did not know the names or the abilities of those people. The listeners in the crowd were not able to hear the problems of  speakers when it happened, but afterwards I began to cry tears out loud and told everyone near me that I did not know the names of the speakers, nor their abilities or interests. But what was worse, I think, was that no one else listening received any information about the plans for the future or what any of the speakers had said. I knew then, that I could not honestly vote for anyone. Without any purpose, I began to cry because of the meaningless results of our evening, and a few people near me saw me and understood what I was feeling.  I believe that many other people felt the same way as me, but most people did not show it. The main leader of the events was told that we would all be able to vote the day after they gave their speeches. Since that was our only choice, I will vote for one person I know and trust because I don’t know any of the others. Nevertheless, I am outraged and will continue to be that way because we were all denied the information we needed to know. The nameless ones who stood before us were not able to give us information about their abilities, interests, or personalities. If that is the right way to present the best people for a job, just tell us to choose by fancy clothing and good looks or else just give us papers with names we may know or not.  Obviously we weren’t given the chance to think.

Joanne Yatvin

A while ago I read a NY times article about outdoor preschools. Although I think such schools are going a bit overboard with their insistence on having almost all activities outdoors, I appreciate their understanding of the need young children have to explore the world around them and to experiment using their own imagination and skills. Today I will describe significant parts of the article and expand it with my own ideas of what a preschool should do.

 In the Times article the activities of several preschools in different parts of the country were described. Although each school was unique, all of them held almost all their teaching and learning in the natural world outdoors, and all of them gave children great freedom to select their activities and materials and use them as they pleased. Nevertheless, the school I admired most was the Drumlin Farm Community Preschool in Massachusetts because it had a basic structure with children feeding farm animals and growing vegetables as well as exploring the wildlife habitat. All the other schools seemed to operate solely on what existed naturally in the environment or what was happening with the weather.

Although most of the schools also had some indoor facilities, they did not use them except when the weather was bad. In fact, no indoor activities were described in the article. One school, Fiddleheads Forest School in the state of Washington takes children outside rain or shine; they all have water proof outfits to wear when needed.

As for their activities, Fiddlehead children spend most of their time “carting around rocks in wheelbarrows, playing at being (sword-less) pirates, examining trees split by lightning, digging in wood-chip piles to make child-size ‘nests’, finding an unknown seed and dubbing it a ‘Nothing Berry,’ and running up and down hills.”

At any of the outdoor schools a teacher might decide to take a group of children to a particular place for learning something special, such as identifying flowers.  None of the schools seemed to have a set curriculum. It was up to the teachers to decide what would be best for students at any particular time or place.

As might be expected, all the schools identified were private ones, situated in neighborhoods where parents were well educated, and for the most part, prosperous.

The comments of some critics also appeared in the article, but they weren’t very critical. The critics, who were university professors, felt that outdoor  preschools were a reaction to the testing and early teaching of academic skills currently imposed on children in schools, and that they would fade away when education policy becomes more reasonable.

I, too, found little to criticize. I wholeheartedly approve of outdoor experiences for young children and the opportunities to explore their needs and interests in their own way. But, at the same time I think that important indoor activities were being ignored—or, at least, not mentioned in the article.  Young children also need music, art, poetry, role playing and, most of all, experience with books. I don’t mean they should be taught reading in preschool, but that they need access to many picture books and to be read to regularly.

Also, as I hinted above in describing the Drumlin Farm Community Preschool, having some structure is important for young children.  In all homes there is a structure of when, where, and how to do such things as brushing your teeth and going to bed that gives children a sense of structure in time, place, activities, and  behavior. A preschool should expand children’s structure by teaching them how to behave in various places and situations and how to treat other children and adults.  Long before they are held to any math or reading standards, a good school teaches children the fundamentals of living in a structured world.

Last month I read an article about a California elementary school that changed its basic structure to emphasize project-based learning. Because I was absorbed with other topics at the time, I saved the major parts of the article, but did not record its source. Today, when I decided at last to analyze the article and write about it, I could not find it using the search engines on my computer. The best I was able to do was use the content I had saved to explain some of the changes at that school, give examples from my own experiences with projec-based learning, and make suggestions for new types of high schools.

Five years ago, under the leadership of a new principal, Katherine Smith Elementary School in San José, CA dedicated itself to becoming a hub for 21^st century learning. The school, in a high poverty area, with a large percentage of English language learners, was determined to change its traditional structure and teaching methods to project-based learning, involving both teachers and students in collaborative work and focusing on the skills needed for successful careers and active citizenship.

The new principal, Aaron Brengard, and the many experienced teachers who transferred to the school knew their job would not be easy, but they dedicated themselves to working together and teaching students to do the same.

By traditional measures the school has not become more successful. Standardized test scores are still very low and behavior problems still emerge from time to time. On the other hand, student and parent surveys show high satisfaction with the projects and teaching methods. Also, in frequent presentations of projects, students exhibit much improved speaking and critical thinking skills.

In a recent economics project for third graders, for example, students designed new products and studied marketing skills. When they had finished their work the results were presented to a group of adults acting as possible buyers in a “Shark Tank” presentation. Afterward, there was a fair for parents to examine the products closely and talk to students about their manufacturing costs and the design processes.

As I read this article I admired the efforts the school was making, but also wondered if the principal and teachers had a strong enough grasp of what project-based learning means. Although the students were working on interesting projects, it did not look like those projects were related to the academic skills and knowledge that were the main focus of their class curriculum. I had hoped that project-based learning meant that students’ projects grew out of the things they were studying in math, English, etc. and the knowledge and skills they were learning.

Over my long career as a teacher and a principal, and later as an observer in other elementary schools, I became familiar with some programs that emphasized project- based learning as I understand it. Below I will briefly describe some of the projects that I participated in or observed.

While studying a particular topic or practicing an academic skill, students were also

creating their own math problems similar to the ones being taught

writing about historical events as if they were participants in them

turning a fairy tale they had read into a puppet performance for classmates or parents

creating birthday cards for classmates, the teachers or the principal

producing a set of original products to sell in the school store, pricing them to justify the time and effort needed, and then creating advertisments for their products to be placed in the school hallways

making a video with classmates to demonstrate safe playground behaviors

working with classmates to create a new set of classroom rules when they felt that the ones the teacher had established earlier no longer worked well

interviewing grandparents or older neighbors about what school was like when they were young, in order to write articles for a book they were making about the schools of the past

choosing appropriate stories to read aloud to children in lower grade classrooms and figuring out which pictures to show and words to explain while reading

creating a table game for traveling west on the Oregon Trail

Performing a classroom job, such as putting books back on classroom book shelves correctly, for one week and then training another student to do the job for the following week

Learning how to read a map by drawing an imaginary island and indicating mountains, rivers, cities, major highways and other physical features

drawing the outline of a covered wagon to scale on the classroom floor to see how many people and how much baggage could fit into it

“adopting a road” near the school and cleaning up the roadsides as a group three or four times a year

writing a set of directions for a robot to do a particular task, and then testing the order and precision of those directions by having another student act them out

I didn’t describe any projects for high school students because I can’t remember any from my time as a high school teacher. Actually, I think that project-based learning is  impossible for a high school to provide in fifty minute classes held in multiple classrooms.  The only way I can see for high school projects to be carried out right now is at times and places outside of school; and the problem with such arrangements is that they would separate projects from the learning experiences that stimulate and inform them.

Perhaps the only solution is to restructure high schools in a variety of ways, providing  not only training in specified areas, but also laboratory-type classes that would be equipped with different sorts of  equipment and materials and last for at least two hours at a time. Although making such changes would be difficult and expensive, they might provide   better education experiences for the large number of students who want and need project based learning to keep them in school, help them graduate on time, and prepare them for the realities of living and working in the real world.

As I promised, today’s post gives my reactions to the beliefs and actions that have emerged from the introduction of Personalized Learning, as I understand them.  Digesting all the material in the Education Week booklet was difficult for me, so I may have interpreted some things incorrectly or been unfair in my judgments.  I would like very much to hear the opinions of readers who may be more familiar with the concept that characterises Personalized Learning and its performance so far.

Now that I know what personalized learning (PL) means, I realize that I can’t support it. What is clear to me is that PL is tied tightly to the CCSS, high stakes testing, and judgments made about the quality of students, teachers, and schools. Those three pillars of federal education policy have controlled public schools for most of this century so far; and there are not likely to be any school programs or teaching practices that do not bow to their power.

The word that has fooled me for some time– and probably many other people —was “personalized.” I thought it meant that schools would help students to choose, shape, expand, and use their learning to fit their needs and interests. But, alas, it means only that they will be given different types and amounts of assistance to acquire the the skills and information that government leaders and selected “experts” have determinedto be necessary for success in college and the work place.

Nevertheless, as I read the descriptions of PL being applied in some schools today, I had to admit that it might be better than much of the lock-step teaching and student learning expectations of the recent past. At least, PL acknowledges that students who don’t “get” stuff right away deserve some help; and to some extent it allows students to work on projects and give public demonstrations of their learning.

From what I read about the commercial programs being sold to schools, their key components are different forms of presenting information, and additional –perhaps better– explanations of concepts, key skills, and how to learn them. As might be expected, many of the educators consulted seem to think that they also differ widely in quality. Since I read only a few vague descriptions of such programs in the Ed Week booklet, I cannot make any judgment. But I do hope that the schools using such programs have enough variety in every classroom to serve the range of needs and preferences of all students.

Whatever their virtues or weaknesses may be,  PL commercial programs also present some new problems in the expense of the programs and the technology needed to use them, the difficulties of keeping track of student progress in those programs, and the complexity in changing teachers’ roles. I’m also afraid that many teachers will resist those role changes or feel they are incapable of making  them. Also, the presence of multiple commercial programs in every classroom may make it necessary to hire assistants to manage the technology and keep records of students’ progress.

Finally, I feel that our schools are being pushed too fast into accepting a new way of operating that is far from being proved effective. So far, research attempts have failed to produce strong and clear answers; and, I can’t help thinking that one of the reasons is the weakness of the PL concept. It is not at all certain that various types of assistance and more technology will make every student a winner in the sense that the federal government defines it.  Another reason is that the concept of a good education needs to change with the times, and ours has not. Our schools should be modernizing their K-12 curricula, high school course requirements, student discipline practices, class sizes, and the definition of “learning*. Our educational system is still seriously flawed because it has focused on what the people in power believe will raise our status on international tests, and not at all on the needs and aspirations of the young people who are now just subjects in a risky experiment.

• “Learning is not climbing someone else’s ladder, but weaving your own web from the bits of meaning and beauty you find along your way.”

Over the past few months I have found the term “Personalized Learning” in several of the articles I was reading. Although I really didn’t understand what the term meant, it sounded like something I believed in was at last becoming popular in schools. Then, last week I received a booklet in the mail from the newspaper, Education Week, titled“Personalized Learning: the Next Generation.” I decided to read it carefully and find out for sure what this new trend was all about.  

In reading through the booklet I discovered that the term means different things to different people, but that it is also tied to the laws and practices that have ruled education over the past several years. Afterward, I read some other pieces on line that were written by critics or supporters of personalized Learning, so now I think I’m ready to explain to readers what the term means and how it is being implemented. I am also ready to give my opinion on its value and practicality. However, because of the length and complexity of the whole matter, I will present only my review of the Education Week booklet today and leave my opinions of the concept of Personalized Learning for my next posting.

 As I read through the booklet I found the statements by the EW executives fairly neutral. They appeared to be unsure about the meaning and value of this new movement, but felt it was their duty to continue to examine its procedures and results. The only definite opinion among them was that there is not yet any strong research to support it.

On the other hand, Helayne Brinauer Jones, the Senior Program Officer on the K-12 team of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), who was featured on the first page of the booklet, was all for Personalized Learning (PL) and cited one small school system as evidence of its success. Considering that the BMGF has contributed generously to the support and expansion of this innovation, I can’t accept that she is unbiased; nor do I feel that she gave any persuasive evidence that the movement is really helping students to succeed at school.

One early page in the booklet was devoted to diagrams showing the relationships among PL elements and the percentages of different results. I did not find them persuasive or even helpful to my understanding of PL. But, I must admit that studying information presented in this manner is not my strong suit.

For me, the most interesting parts of the booklet were descriptions of what is happening in various schools that have adopted PL officially. Their goals seem to be very much the same: improve the learning of all students, especially those who appear to be lagging behind; and all of them are relying much more on students’ use of technology than in the past. However, their classroom structures and procedures are still quite different.

All schools in Georgia’s Henry County system  are allowed to adopt their own processes and to decide how much they will rely on technology. As a result, there is a wide range of plans, some schools giving more control to students, while others have teachers map-out a series of activities over time for each student.

Some elementary schools devote one day a week to giving students “extra help.” Teachers focus on one academic area at a time, allowing students to make their own choices about where to get such help: from a teacher, on line, from textbooks, or in discussion groups. That seems like a good approach, but I could also see the complexity of extra preparation and evaluation in teachers’ responsibilities.

Another section of the booklet focused on research. Several studies have been undertaken in recent years, but according to the writer of that section,“the research evidence behind ‘personalized learning’ remains thin. The U.S. Department of Education has given half a billion dollars to districts that embrace the trend, with limited findings to date.” Also, the BMGF has given $300 million to support research and development. Officials there claim it’s too early to evaluate results. Other sources that have begun research studies tell much the same story: results seem promising, but it’s too early to make a definitive judgment.

There were several more articles recounting what some states or school districts were doing to implement PL, but I did not find anything remarkable or detailed enough to describe here. All I can say is there is a lot of variation and dependency on technology to carry the burden of teaching to the widely different needs of so many students.

I did not read two articles near the end of the booklet, because they seemed irrelevant to the issues at hand. One was on teaching social-emotional learning through technology and the other was on middle school students using a program called “Happify”, which is supposed to give a picture of a students’ character strengths to school officials.

Near the end the EW booklet reportrd on an assessment of the various forms of technology available. Over all, the school officials and teachers consulted were very skeptical of the value of ed-tech products to improve students’ learning or their involvement with schooling. At best, they felt it is very difficult—if not impossible—to provide a product that fits the needs of most students. They also were un-persuaded by the emphasis on producing data that some products boasted about; they felt that  most of it was not helpful to teachers.

Finally, the booklet compared the situation of PL in schools today to its inception around ten years ago by asking the opinions of a few school officials. Although they reported significant progress in the movement toward the use of technology in their schools, I felt they dodged the question of whether there were significant improvements  in students’ learning thus far.