The object of education for anyone is to provide something
that’s missing – how do I read, how do I paint, how do I interpret Plato?
Regardless of the exact curriculum or method of teaching there are social,
emotional, and cognitive skills that poor children are missing and need to be
taught if they are going to successfully escape poverty.
According to their website, KIPP schools aspire through
their teachers to create a rigorous academic environment that also provides
role models and support systems, characteristically missing in poor families, as
Ms. Payne has pointed out[1],
to help their students out of poverty.
Children in poverty, particularly generational poverty,
literally come from an alternative culture. They need someone to model the different
cultural norms so they know how one thinks, talks, and acts in the culture they
aspire to. Perhaps more importantly, by providing a nurturing relationship that
teacher or series of teachers can be the key relationship that transports
children out of poverty.
Support systems provide the how-tos of the new culture. How
do you do this algebra assignment when you don’t understand it; how do you balance
a checkbook; how do you dress for a college or job interview? Having the time
and taking the time to identify and focus in on the needs of the students and
providing this kind of support, again in a nurturing manner, will help students
bridge the gap to the middle class.
I have no first hand knowledge of how well KIPP schools
achieve these goals but they are goals all schools should aspire to. Being
aware of these differences and being able to provide resources to overcome
these differences should be a crucial part of the education of teachers and the
task of teaching. Schools and teachers should be judged on how well they
provide this kind of service.
With respect to curriculum, regardless of what cognitive
skills are taught non-cognitive skills should be embedded into the course work
and/or taught as separate class work. Non-cognitive skills include perseverance,
self-control, social intelligence, curiosity, gratitude, enthusiasm, and
optimism.[2]
These character traits are as important to scholastic and life success as any
cognitive learning skill. Furthermore, while they are most easily instilled at
an early age they can be learned even later on in a scholastic career.[3]
With respect to the academic curriculum my only suggestions
are the following.
I would recommend ensuring that all students are bilingual
by the time they enter first grade. This would be accomplished by immersion in
English in preschool for children for whom this is a second language and
immersion in a second language in preschool for children fluent in English.
This is when brains are optimally designed to learn language. A former classmate
of mine has run a Montessori school outside of Chicago and English-speaking 3
year olds are immersed in one of 3 languages and come out at age six fluent in
the immersion language.
I would consider introducing students to a musical
instrument at around age six. There are a host of cognitive and non-cognitive
skills that can be learned in the practice of a musical instrument.
In my next entry, I take a stab at how we might educate
teachers, how we might measure achievement, and how we would pay for all this.
In addition, while one in five children live in poverty
(compared to 1 in 8 adults) and 44% live in low-income families, that still
leaves a majority of children who are middle class or above. In my next entry I
will also take a stab at what if any benefit this structure might have on the
majority of students.
[1]
I reference my own blog. http://geoffhberg.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-framework-for-understanding-poverty.html
[2]
Again KIPP schools are exemplary is that this is part of their mission and curriculum
http://www.kipp.org/approach/character/
[3]
In the early 90’s Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman noted that
students who took the GED to earn a high school equivalent diploma studied an
average of 32 hours. In subsequent studies he found that compared to high
school graduates they tended to do poorly in jobs, the armed services and
marriage. What they lacked were non-cognitive skills. I came across this idea
in the following This American Life segment.
It is very worthwhile to listen to. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/474/back-to-school
You're probably are aware that public school employees are not generally charterphiles.
ReplyDeleteBetsy DeVos' legislative efforts to champion charter school growth have made public school employees ever more phobic.
A few of the public/charter contentious issues are:
Many charter schools have a policy of zero tolerance, strict discipline made famous by the "no excuses" KIPP chain of schools.
Services for Special Ed and English language learners are lacking at many charters. Special Ed, ELL, and expelled "no excuses"students are often sent back to public school, which has a duty to educate those students.
Publicly funded, but privately operated, many charters are run by for-profit companies. Charter companies have fought legislative efforts to echo public school's transparency and accountability.
Aside from the public/charter issue, your point about extending the school day and year is right on target. Over my years of teaching, I found that students returning from any vacation longer than 2 weeks showed signs of content loss. Summer vacation showed almost a 2 month loss.The first 3 months of school was generally spent catching up with the content, and getting students revved up for a new push.
The balance between academic and non-academic education is a complicated one. For the first half of my career, my principal pushed for academic excellence. He always had a lineup of students waiting for disciplinary action (or unfortunately non-action) outside his door. The second half of my career was spent with a principal who was a champion of student well-being. No line in front of his office, but the academic level of performance dropped. It was hard get his support for stressing the students a bit by pushing them academically.
As for teacher training, I found my outside-the-classroom training a waste of time and money. Real learning came from being in front of a classroom of squirrely kids, perfecting your pacing so that the kids stayed with you. I see that many teacher-training programs are now requiring 6 mo - 1 year of student teaching. A good idea if the issue of salary subsidy can be worked out.
Finally, quite amazing to see the teacher strikes in West Virginia and Oklahoma. Every teacher I knew worked 10 hour days, used personal funds to buy supplies, and did not complain. Pretty amazing to see teachers speaking up.
from a retired teacher