NCLB versus Arts continued...

The study out of Boston also identified “habits of mind” that the arts teach. “Habits of mind” is a phrase we educators like, knowing the importance of sound and healthy habits for sound and healthy bodies, lives, and, yes, minds. These habits include such qualities as

- Persistence: helpful to keep on going in the face of adversity;
- Expression: crucial in communicating one’s thoughts and values;
- Innovation: especially significant in today’s challenging and challenged world;
- Self-evaluation: a talent arguably in sad deficit for those of us who insist on repeating the same mistakes; and
- Observation: the ability to see beyond our prejudices and preconceptions.

These are powerful skills that go beyond the important mastery of subject matter. Of course students need to know tested reading and math skills. They need to know them with “automaticity,” another teacher-word, meaning without thinking. Ask a kid what nine-times-nine is, and she should say “eighty-one,” without thinking. Automaticity in action. But isn’t there more to education than that? Aren’t we interested in widening and deepening students’ thinking, in giving them plenty of occasions to persevere, innovate, and succeed?

Especially our brighter students, who it can be argued, are often left behind or, at the least, left to fend for themselves – as teachers concentrate on less-able, needier students.

We all know youngsters who have difficulties in the classroom but who bloom when they’re involved in one or more of the arts: creative writing, playing a musical instrument, singing, acting, painting, drawing, sculpting, dancing, photographing, performing, or any other of the myriad arts. These kids show talents we never knew they had. They become disciplined, focused, passionate.

Want relevance? You could make comparisons to athletes who find the same outlets in their sports and teams. What’s an orchestra’s or a play’s cast if not a team? What’s a conductor or director if not a coach? How’s the discipline needed for arduous scrimmage different from that needed for arduous rehearsal? What athlete doesn’t know the importance of persistence, self-evaluation, and observation?

Want more relevance? You could make similar comparisons to the workplace, where people work in teams to solve problems, where they call on their discipline, perseverance, and creativity to produce results, where they’re called on daily to innovate and improve.

Instead of defensively pleading that education decision-makers please find remnants of time and finances for the arts in our schools, we should be arguing forcefully that the skills and thinking required in the arts should be a part of all curricula. That would take No Child Left Behind to another, more human level, beyond mounds of often contradictory data to students’ hopes, dreams, and lives.

Know of a student who was “saved” by the arts? Were you one? Or are the arts just one more intrusion into the “real” subjects students should be learning? I’d love to hear your ideas.

NCLB versus Arts

With increasing emphasis on standardized testing in American schools and with a growing competition for education dollars in schools’ budgets, is there still a compelling reason to insist on including the arts in students’ curricula?

You bet there is.

There are the often-cited compelling reasons. There’s plenty of evidence to show that students who are involved in the arts perform better than students who aren’t. There are studies that show the arts’ positive influence on the achievement of high-poverty rural and urban students. Some educators, politicians and even poll respondents claim that the arts will help students on standardized tests.

Really? Is there a cause-and-effect relationship? No one seems to know. But there’s an interesting study from Boston, funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust, that says the arts are relevant and important for another reason: they address certain thinking skills and habits not otherwise taught in schools’ curricula.

As reported in The Boston Globe, this study identifies those arts-emphasized skills as reflection, self-criticism, and the willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes. It’s rare that the standardized test assesses these skills, skills that are necessary in higher education, on the job, in Real Life.

Later this week, I’ll touch further on the relevance of art and the “habits of mind” it teaches.

Choosing the Right School continued...

Here are five guidelines to keep in mind for choosing a school:

1. Know what’s important to you. Do you want a school that has before- and after-school care to serve your family’s busy schedule? One with plenty of services for an elementary pupil with some special needs? One that has lots of opportunities for your rambunctious middle schooler whose interests are changing faster than her hormones? One that has a stellar debate squad, football team, or school newspaper for your teenager with unique talents and dreams?

2. Visit the school. No matter what kind of school it is, it’s good to see it, get a feel for the place, try it on, take it for a test drive. Don’t just drop in, though. Schools are busy places, so make an appointment to meet with an administrator, guidance counselor, student leader, or some representative of the school who can give you a tour and answer questions. First impressions are important. When you get there, you should be treated like a potential valuable customer, met with a friendly smile and made to feel welcome. Be generous if things are a bit hectic – schools are full of daily crises large and small – and be forgiving if someone doesn’t get to you instantly.)

3. Notice the surroundings. Does it appear that the adults are in charge? It should be quiet, but not eerily so. Sometimes learning can be active and enthusiastic kids can be noisy. What’s on the walls in the public hallways? There should be student artwork from kids of all ages and talents; awards for everything from reading contests to chorus performances; a “Wall of Fame” of distinguished alumni, parents, community supporters. All of these should be recent. Nothing worse than dust-covered artwork of students long since graduated.

4. Watch for active learning. Is learning going on? This, after all, is the very reason why the school exists in the first place. Are teachers in charge in the classrooms, with focused students busily working alone or in groups? Is the library well stocked with recent books and technology? Is there a librarian? What about non-state-tested-but-vitally-important-subjects? Music? Art? Physical education and health? Civics? Extracurriculars? Field trips? Opportunities for tutoring? What about teacher credentials? What’s the teacher turn-over rate? For high schools, what’s the graduation rate? The percentage of students going on to post-secondary schooling? Finally, what are the school’s test scores? I say “finally,” because you should ask those more important questions first.

5. Learn about the school’s values. Look at the behavior in the cafeteria at lunchtime and you can learn a lot about a school’s personality. Is there evidence of important behaviors like respect and responsibility? Elsewhere, do you see an enthusiasm for teaching and learning? Are the adults motivating the students to do their best? Are the adults acknowledging effort and achievement? Is there an active PTA? Are there parent volunteers helping out in classrooms and offices? Do the kids and the adults feel safe? Talk to other parents, to students, to alumni, to neighbors of the school. They’ll tell you what you want to know.

If you haven’t been in a school for a while, you’ll be amazed at how much things have changed. Have an open mind for the new experiences, sights and activities you’ll see. But also, watch for those timeless universals that shouldn’t change: adults who enjoy being with and nurturing youngsters, kids who see the potential in what they’re learning, and everyone working together in a place that’s safe and highly motivating. It shouldn’t sound like some dream place. It should be real.

Choosing the Right School

Few decisions are as important as choosing an elementary, middle, or high school for your children. Realtors tell me that people buy homes depending on the school district serving those homes. Yet when I ask folks why they chose a certain school, they often have very little idea other than what they hear from friends or from their realtors.

“We just chose the best school,” they say.

Oh.

Choosing a school is like choosing a car, only without anyone saying, “What do I have to do to get you in a fourth grade class?” What’s right for one family is entirely wrong for another. You can choose the “best” car, say a $200,000 hand-finished Bentley, and despite its elegance and finesse, it’s probably going to be impractical, worthless for your needs. Looks good to the neighbors, but not much use to your kids. Same with schools. You can choose the most expensive private school in your city, and despite its proud history and achievements, it may be the wrong fit for your child.

Plus, there are so many choices! Public, private, parochial, charter, independent, even online and home school consortiums (many parents pitching in, each sharing particular talents) are available. Come to think of it, it can be even more perplexing than choosing a car!

So, what to do?

Later this week, I’ll cover the key principles to consider before choosing a school…

Surviving the SATs/ACTs continued...

For Parents:

There’s plenty you can do to help your kids do well on these tests. The first thing to remember is that if you’re stressed, they will be, too. Calm down.

1. Start early. I just told your kids to start early. I’ll tell you the same thing, except your role starts way earlier than theirs. Yours starts as soon as kids start school. Help them develop those study habits, test habits and “habits of mind” that will stay with them throughout school and into Real Life. Give them reliable and steady homework routines. Be good role models, letting them see you reading and doing math in your real-life adult lives. Show them you value learning.

2. Reward and penalize. Set goals with your teens, then reward them when they reach those goals. Set rules about what happens when they don’t reach the goals. Make sure they understand the rules. The best penalty is temporarily to take away something that your teen really, really enjoys like the cell phone or music for an evening. Dr. Ruth Peters, child psychologist and education consultant to NBC’s Today Show, advocates taking away electricity – anything that plugs in or runs on batteries! The best reward is just the opposite: extra time with the phone or music, or better still, alone time with you, doing something fun and memorable.

3. Communicate with the folks at school. Get to know your teen’s teachers and guidance counselors, coaches and adult leaders. Ask their perspectives about how your child is doing in school, on teams, in clubs. Share your concerns, hear their praise and suggestions.

4. Know the test dates. Help your teen prepare for the SAT or ACT by encouraging him (insisting on it) to study early and regularly. Don’t fall for the “I’ll-start-tomorrow-nobody-else-has-even-started-yet” con job. For everyone to see, set up a calendar that shows the test date and the time left to prepare.

5. Get help early. If your teen asks for help, if his teachers recommend it, get it early enough for it to make a difference. Get a tutor, enroll in a test prep program, get help from a National Honor Society student, or get a recent successful test-taker to help.

Finally, students and parents, remember that these assessments are merely one criterion out of many that schools use to determine their acceptance lists. If any school tells you it makes its decisions solely on the test, find another school. They’ll also be interested in your extracurricular activities – are you on sports teams, write for the school paper, take pictures for the yearbook, help with the school play, play in the school band, sing with the choir? Do you spend some community service time with your church, temple, mosque? Are you a member of community groups? Do you help out at home?

In other words, don’t put all your efforts into one event, the SAT or ACT. Do your best all year, trust yourself, be active in lots of things you enjoy, and move on. If you’ve paid attention to these suggestions, you should be in pretty good shape. Good luck!

Surviving the SATs/ACTs

Have a college-bound teenager in the house? If so, this is the time of year to start thinking about the SAT/ACT ritual. Most colleges and universities require one or the other (or either) as a part of their admissions process. The tests are nothing to stress over – if everyone’s done his or her part.

Here are some things to think over before the tests.

For students:

Times have changed since your parents have gone to school, and just about everything else has changed, too. But here’s something that hasn’t changed: The best way to do well in school is to go to class every day, take good notes, study to do well on tests, and, if you need it, get help early and not wait until it’s too late.

The old fable about the grasshopper and the ant still holds up. The grasshopper, ignoring the future, doesn’t survive the winter. The ant, on the other hand, works to prepare for the hard times ahead and lives to tell about it.

Neither of these tests compares to a cold, dark winter, of course, but if you want to eliminate a lot of needless stress, keep yourself on a disciplined routine of study, balanced with fun, friends, extracurriculars, and you’ll do well.

1. Have a “study buddy.” A study buddy is someone you like and admire whom you can rely on daily to keep you on schedule. It’s a reciprocal relationship; you help her, she’ll help you. If you’re a “word” person, good in English but not so confident in math, find a study buddy who’s a “numbers” person who could use your help with English. Everyone wins. Make sure you understand homework assignments, projects, and responsibilities for special events. Know what’s required of you. Know when it’s due. Iron out dicey skills that you’re not confident about. Talk, email, IM, or phone each evening (ten minutes tops) and go over what’s due tomorrow. Ask questions about anything you don’t understand. Then, get to work.

2. Know the difference between the SAT and the ACT. Generally, the SAT is an assessment of your reasoning skills, how logically you think. The ACT is more content specific, following a typical high school curriculum. It used to be that colleges and universities required one or the other. Not anymore. Most schools will accept one or the other. So, choose the one that’s better for you.

3. Prepare. You can do this on your own if you’re very brave. Or you can prepare with your study buddy or even a group of study buddies. That’s what I recommend. There’s strength in numbers, after all. Share your strengths with the others. Make it a team effort. Encourage and support each other. A third way to prepare is to enroll in a test-prep class. Again, you can do this alone or with your friends.

4. Practice. The advantage of test-prep classes is that you’ll take actual SATs or ACTs in your preparations. This is excellent practice. Practice is what athletes, performers, and student drivers do to build their self-assurance. Practice, as they say, makes perfect, and it certainly builds confidence. When you take the actual test, you’ll be familiar with the format, you’ll have reviewed skills, and you’ll know practical strategies – like when you should guess at answers, how to budget your time, or how to eliminate those pesky “sort-of-right” multiple choice answers in favor the “exactly-right” ones.

5. Start early. Don’t wait until a few weeks before the test. Or worse, days, even hours. Don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen. Lots of your classmates will do this. They’re dumb. You can’t prepare for these tests by cramming. Just as with any long-term project, do a little bit at a time, master skills and content slowly so they’ll stay with you. If you need help, you’ll have started early enough to get it.

Up next, I’ll review tips for parents on the rest of my SAT/ACT survival guide…

Middle Schoolers Continued...

Someone once told me that the human brain grows faster in preadolescence – middle school – than at any other time, except for infancy. These kids’ brains are synapsing all over the place, forming new and avid interests quickly. That’s why they’re deeply interested in Harry Potter one week and guitar playing the next. Their minds are changing as fast as their bodies are. They’re actually supposed to be like that!

So if we know all this – that preadolescence is an ugly duckling time, that lots of kids like learning in middle school, that their brains are soaking up everything at a pace much faster than our poor adult brains can manage, that they do well when they’re challenged by kids with similar interests and abilities, that they require services appropriate to their needs – why don’t we do what we should for these kids?

Why don’t we spend the time and money on classes, teachers, materials, experiences, books, services and technology for them? Why don’t we train teachers in the best strategies and latest, most practical research in how to teach them? Why don’t we make these kids – without the embarrassment of fanfare and spotlights – the kind of role models we want other kids to emulate? Why don’t we work to spread the “potential of smart” to all kids?

Why don’t we hear politicians advocating for these kids with the same fervor they use for catching each other in “misstatements” that get played and replayed with annoying and rage-inducing repetition? Are you listening, Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain?

Some educators say – I’ve heard them – that these kids will take care of themselves, that there are more pressing, at least more visible, problems to tackle. I’m not convinced. Neither are these kids.

Middle Schoolers Continued...

Middle schoolers may do their homework while mom or dad is supervising, but they won’t turn it in the next day. Check your kid’s backpack periodically. You’ll be amazed at what’s in there. They may read the assignments, do the projects, even learn the material, but dang if they’ll participate in class or let others know they’ve learned the material, let alone enjoyed it.

It’s not difficult to argue that we live in a time when intelligence and learning are not especially valued. No such movie as Smart and Smarter, is there? Some of our top politicians, looking for preadolescent votes presumably, actually brag about their mediocre grades in school or “lost youth,” as if that’s a badge of honor.

Put these students with the secret motivations together, these “gifted” kids who like to learn, and watch what happens. Magic. They feed off each other, challenge each other, stretch each other. They don’t have to spend energy putting on an act of eye-rolling ennui.

And if they’re with a teacher who knows how to handle their inquisitiveness, who isn’t intimidated by students who may be quicker than she is, the magic becomes a miracle. And don’t think the other kids won’t notice. It’s not too much to hope that it eventually becomes acceptable, if not actually “cool,” to be in the smart group. If we know anything about adolescents, it’s that they want to “belong.”

Tomorrow, I’ll wrap up my thoughts on middle schoolers…

Middle Schoolers

A middle school principal once described a typical early adolescent for me. “A middle schooler is a kid who runs wherever he’s going, and when he gets there, he hits someone,” he said. We were standing in the chaotic halls during a change of classes and I was wishing I could soak up a mere fraction of the energy that surrounded me.

It takes a special person to teach preadolescents, someone who can see the potential in awkward, fidgety, unattractive kids (oh, face it, they are!), sort of like the person who can walk into a “fixer upper” house and see it as the sleek and elegant place it will become.

Middle school is the time of potential. A place of ugly ducklings. They’ll become magnificent swans soon enough, in their own ways, but right now it sure helps to see the potential.

It’s a particularly tough place for many kids. Especially the ones who genuinely enjoy learning new things. Maybe they’re one of the rare “gifted,” those kids for whom knowledge, skills, themes, and concepts come quickly and with humbling precocity. Or maybe they’re one of those cooperative, inquisitive, delightful, and eager-to-please students who genuinely enjoy learning.

In elementary school, most kids are enthusiastic about learning. Everything is new for them, and their wide eyes and enthusiasm perk up the place. About grade four, especially for boys, they begin to see other things that interest them way more than what they learn in school. Reading decreases, so do grades.

By middle school, maybe age eleven or so, it’s “cool” to look uninterested in school. For those kids who still enjoy the school experience, even those rare “gifted” kids, it’s a tough time. Soon they become gifted at hiding their giftedness or at least their uncool interest.

Next up, I’ll explore the middle school mindset further…

Values continued...

The school system where I taught, Baltimore County, Maryland, tackled the issue of values in the 1980s and, after a lengthy and debated process that included diverse populations, recognized a common core of basic human values in a pluralistic society. These included things like compassion, courtesy, freedom of thought and action, honesty, human worth and dignity, integrity, justice, knowledge, reasoned argument, respect for others’ rights, responsibility, self-respect, tolerance, and truth. No sermons about religion or “morals” – these values were simply behaviors that our community mostly agreed on. Teachers and students knew it was okay to discuss these values in the context of their lessons; parents knew their opinions were welcome, too.

The issue is still relevant. One of my favorite educational organizations, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (www.ascd.org), has information about character education, including resources for teachers and parents.

So I’d be interested in knowing what “role models” kids today are emulating? (I had promised myself not to use that phrase, but, alas there it is.) Do any of them come from literature? Video games? Celebrities? Characters from television dramas, comedies, or (shudder) reality shows? Actual acquaintances, friends, family, teachers, clergy, coaches, neighbors? Politics, do I dare ask?

I’d also be interested in just what values kids are learning and accepting? What do they admire, what principles guide their behaviors?

I recognize, unlike Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, that the world changes, that people change, but I also like to think that there are some things that are so universal, so essential, that they remain with us. They may look different in their outward appearances, but their fundamental worth remains strong. Family comes to mind. Friendships, too.

What do you think?

Values continued...

A bloviator on the radio the other day said that schools shouldn’t even try to “teach values” to children. That’s the parents’ job, he said.

True enough. I might add it’s the job of other “institutions,” as well, say, the occasional visit to church, synagogue, or mosque; participation in kid organizations; neighborhood experiences, and so on. Parents direct all these things, but some parents do a better job of it than others.

Parents play a dominant role, but school is right up there, whether we like it or not. As a high school English teacher, I wouldn’t know how to teach literature without recognizing characters’ values. This may be somewhat of a simplification, but how can you teach Macbeth without acknowledging horrible ambition; Hamlet without paralyzing indecision; Romeo and Juliet without witless rivalry? How can you teach The Catcher in the Rye without admitting an aversion to change and fear of growing up; To Kill a Mockingbird without a condemnation of unremitting prejudice; Lord of the Flies without wondering how thin the veneer of “civility”; Huckelberry Finn without seeing hypocrisy however humorously depicted? What about biographies and autobiographies – what better way to learn about the values of famous historical figures than from their life stories?

If I had been a history teacher, how would I have taught the Civil War – or any war for that matter – without a debate, about the conflict of values? How to learn about the founding of our own country? How to discuss current events?

It seems to me when you put kids and adults together, there are going to be values taught and learned - sometimes in both directions. Kids watch adults all the time and they’re learning from what we say and what we do. Yes, we teach values in school – we can’t help it.

While you consider those ideas, I’ll finish up with my final thoughts later this week…

Values

A quick note: I know that typically my posts are longer than some have time to read in one sitting. So, I’ve decided to try a new format to spread my thoughts on certain topics into a few posts each week, starting with today’s topic of Values.

Where do we learn our values? Do books count any more? As an old English teacher I was interested in whether students formed deep personal relationships with the characters in the novels, plays, narrative poems, and short stories they read.

I know this sounds terribly old fashioned today – students emulating literary characters, but it came to mind as I’ve seen untold numbers of young people reading the Harry Potter books. Standing in line at a Paris museum, I counted Harry in three different languages. In church I saw Harry hidden in the hymnal. I’ve seen Harry in the company of young readers in restaurants, at the market and even at the movies. Parents have told me that their youngest children want to learn to read so they can read Harry like their older brothers and sisters.

So, do kids get some of their values from school – from books they read to the people they meet? After all, they spend much of their lives at school. They read about lots of different characters, both fictional and real. And, of course, they’re surrounded by their friends, many of whom are characters in their own rights.

Next, I’ll touch a little more on the sources of values for kids.