Exciting Thoughts from the Heights

I am reflecting quietly on some things that have happened in the past week or so w/ my kids' schooling, trying to figure out how to unwrap it here.  

In the meantime, here's a recent article from Edutopia describing how technology--the way KIDS use it--must shape our educational practice. It's written by Michele Knobel, the head of the reading department at Montclair State.  

I was supposed to matriculate in the masters reading program there this fall, but have put it off until January.  When we met a week ago to discuss my interests and the direction of my studies, Dr. Knobel encouraged me to investigate the PhD program in curriculum and teaching that may be offered next fall.  After all, I already have a masters in that area.   

I do plan to look into getting my doctorate (and not being a wage earner for another decade).  But the reading program still beckons.  One reason I applied to it is because there's a heavy emphasis on "new" literacies--how digital natives communicate information differently than in generations past, and how, in turn, technology can (and will!) reinforce the acquisition of literacy skills.

The other reason I'm excited about the program is that Dr. Knobel is the kind of vibrant thinker who sees things for what they are, but wants to make them better.   

My kind of gal.

 

More on Cursive Writing (Or, Are There Better Uses of Instructional Time?)

Last week, I wrote about the emphasis on cursive writing in my son's third-grade classroom.

An article on that subject appears in today's Education Week.  (Unfortunately, as many dear readers pointed out last week, you must subscribe to Ed Week to get the entire text.  If you would like the entire article,  or any others from that periodical, I can email them to you...)

The article includes arguments FOR continued emphasis on cursive, but it comes mostly from, uh, Zaner-Bloser, the company that publishes most of this country's penmanship curriculum!!! The other pro-cursives are the teachers who insist 

In the age of computers, I just tell the children, what if we are on an island and don't have electricity? One of the ways we communicate is through writing...

Here's a more thoughtful analysis of the issue from that article:

[Vanderbilt University professor] Graham argues that fears over the decline of handwriting in general and cursive in particular are distractions from the goal of improving students' overall writing skills. The important thing is to have students proficient enough to focus on their ideas and the composition of their writing rather than how they form the letters. (Itals, mine.)

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that 26 percent of 12th graders lack basic proficiency in writing, while two percent were sufficiently skilled writers to be classified as "advanced. "

"Handwriting is really the tail wagging the dog," Graham said.

Besides, it isn't as if all those adults who learned cursive years ago are doing their writing with the fluent grace of John Hancock.

Most people peak in terms of legibility in 4th grade, Graham said, and Wright said it's common for adults to write in a cursive-print hybrid.

Back to School Night: Low-Tech

Last night was Back to School night at my kids' school.  There are exciting things going on in both classrooms, and I am happy that my children have such passionate and devoted teachers.

But one thing I noticed?   In both classrooms, I heard (mostly) fearful and/or disdainful references to technology.   

There was a tiny TV in the corner of the room on which our principal and PTA president delivered the keynote welcome--usually done in the flesh.  So, there was that.  I would have also liked to hear how this particular kind of "technology" can be and is used to promote learning and critical thinking skills.  Is it just used as a TV, as it was last night?  Because if it is, that's nothing new, of course.  Will video be produced by the kids to demonstrate understanding of a topic or produce a school newscast?  If so, I'd love to hear about it!

We did talk about an important ("serious") part of the third-grade curriculum:  Cursive!  

The main rationale given for teaching it? Because there aren't enough laptops the kids can use for typing their work.  (I'm not sure I get it, but I think it's arguable.)  I'm going to go out on a limb and guess my kids will NEVER have to use cursive.  (And as far as producing a signature, I'm sure that'll be outdated in, say, 10 years.  If not, I didn't develop mine until I was an adult, and it took all of about five minutes.)  Instead of cursive, couldn't we substitute more math?  Science?Literature?  Writing?  Lunch time?  Recess?  

In another classroom, technology was referred to as the enemy of early literacy.  Young children come to school now "not able to handwrite."  (Though of the ten children I know in that class, some of whom attended the Pre-K, ALL of them can write.)  And this is blamed on--computers?  I'm not sure this is true, but if it is, then maybe technology can be our friend in this endeavor.  

While doing some research today, I happened upon this article promoting the latest issue of the the fabulous magazine, Educational Leadership.  In this case, the subject is specifically social networking, but it applies to every other kind of technology out there.  

I've copied and forwarded it both to the principal of my kids' school and Dr. Alvarez.   Below is a tiny excerpt, but I am personally looking forward to reading more of the new issue.  I hope you will, too.

New communications tools are now supporting group interaction and group actions in ways they have never done before. As a result, the way we communicate, read, write, listen, persuade, learn from others, and accomplish community actions is changing. Or, as someone said when we were planning this issue of Educational Leadership, "Literacy—it's not just learning to read a book anymore."

"Students will be—and to some extent already are—living in a world of online interactions for which they currently have few learning contexts or models," Will Richardson (p. 26) tells us:

Teaching students to contribute and collaborate online in ways that are both safe and appropriate requires instruction and modeling, not simply crossing our fingers and hoping for the best when they go home and do it on their own.

We mustn't be fearful or label this new reality a fad just because we don't possess fluency with the media yet. We must instead remember how much our kids need us to teach them the old literacy skills and facilitate the learning of the new. As Jason Ohler writes, "Now more than ever, students need teachers who can help them sort through choices, apply technology well, and tell their stories clearly and with humanity."

Amen.

How Every Kid in Montclair Can Have a Private Tutor

Yesterday, a piece in the NYT explained how technology could ultimately be used in schools (and already is in some) to provide students with the kind of one-on-one tutoring valued in classical education.  The article delineates how, for instance, online learning (e.g. a lesson or course taught via the Internet) can teach important concepts:

Online education used to be mostly correspondence courses put on the Web. But no more, as interactive simulations for trial-and-error experiments become routine. An example, Ms. Means said, might be Web-based software to teach elementary school students the concept of density by testing if virtual objects float or sink in water. Size and weight alone, she noted, determines whether an object floats — and students can test their predictions against online simulations.

“Students are not repeating something they learned by rote, but making if-then judgments,” said Ms. Means, an educational psychologist at SRI International. “The more of that you can do, the more real learning goes on.”

This is something I've thought a lot about in the past.  In fact, not so long ago, when I was exploring my kids' educational options, but realized homeschooling would never work for our family, I considered hiring a tutor who could work with my kids, providing enriched but traditional tutoring on an individualized basis for about four hours a day.

I figured "socialization" could happen in extra-curricular settings, as they participated in sports and other activities.  

Quick calculations led me to believe we could do this for somewhat less than sending both kids to private schools, but with the high taxes in Montclair, it wouldn't make sense.  (And thus the voucher system appeals to me on many levels. Much to the consternation of my liberal loved ones!) 

For this, and other reasons, I let the brainstorm fizzle.   Always, I hear the voice in my head that argues, They need to learn all this stuff--how to stand up for themselves in a big crowd, how to deal with the sarcastic, mean, or disorganized teacher, how to deal with boredom.

But I am on the fence.  I'm not so sure  young children should have to deal with boredom, unresponsive teachers, or conforming to the crowd.   (And if this is a requirement of our society (e.g. the typical workplace or the political system), let's question that, instead.)

So technology holds a promise here.  But not just for kids and families who have a certain idea of education, like tutoring or homeschooling.  It can also work, obviously, for the schools themselves, perhaps making fantasies like mine unnecessary, even obsolete.

In fact, it seems a little weird to me that technology is not used MORE in our classrooms, and that it's still being debated at all.  There's so much talk in our district about differentiated instruction.  With technology, you've got one very very good way to make that actually happen.

I teach at Montclair State, and we are constantly being exhorted by the higher authorities there to remember whom we are dealing with--digital natives, born into (and sometimes, on) the Internet, texting, blogging, and You Tubing the way my generation phoned, watched TV, and appropriated Pink Floyd lyrics to communicate our ideas and explore issues.  Yes, I can have my college students write essays and listen as I lecture.  But if I really want to know what they're thinking about the material?  I'd better read their Tweets about the class, too.

Kindergartners must be taught to use the Internet, first and second graders to blog, third graders to create videos demonstrating their understanding of colonial America, and so forth.  

And not next year or within ten years.  But now.

Happy New Year!

We had some ups and downs yesterday as both my kids started school.  All I could do was promise that, whatever problems might arise, we'd solve them together.  It sounds so...

Parents magazinish,  but this mantra seems to satisfy my kids. Fact is,  I am a little more confident navigating the "system" than I was in 2006, when my boy started kindergarten.  But not much more.  As determined as I am to advocate for my children, sometimes, it gives me a stomachache.  An ulcer, to be exact.

So, today was Day 2.  And, for me, that is always the more pivotal moment in this whole transition.  The first day is all about encountering the unknowable--anxiety-provoking, but containing the germ of promise, too.  The second day, the mystery becomes reality.  The germ becomes either a healthy shoot or a raging virus.  

So, I felt tense picking them up at 2:30. I saw my daughter's kindergarten teacher on the playground with them, practicing at lining up and listening, two activities that set my teeth on edge--no matter how necessary they may be in moving groups of small children from one place in a large school to another.  Oh no, I inwardly groaned.  My girl is going to hate all that! (Not because she doesn't know how to do this, or isn't supremely well-behaved, but because she IS.)

Then I remembered how, yesterday, my son actually cried when he saw a teacher he will be encountering this year.  (And I'm not sure this teacher is so "bad" at all, but merely scary, somehow, to him.)

As I walked to meet my children, here's what my inner worrier was saying:  

I will take them both out of school this year if things don't go well.  I will!  We will move to Princeton and I will sell all my stocks to send them to The Waldorf School!  Or I will homeschool!  Or run away with them to Korea, where I will teach English, and they will write Hangul and learn to eat pickled vegetables!  

(Never mind that 1) my wealth in stocks would barely cover the materials fees at Waldorf; 2) I took my kids to the doctor two days before school started simply because I'd run out of ways to entertain them; and, 3) my husband's company doesn't have an office in Korea.)

And then I saw them, and when I asked my daughter how it went, she said, "Good."

And when we met my son, he said he'd had a good day, and smiled.  

And I breathed deeply and said a prayer of thanks to the teachers for the beginning of something good.