Submitted by Leonard Isenberg (not verified) on December 6, 2006 - 00:52.
After teaching for over 21 years in both the United States and France, I have come to the following conclusions as to what would make a measurably difference in our students chances for success:
The problems that my students suffer from are generational and cannot be addressed by unwarranted optimistic edspeak and encouragement without substantive and pragmatic changes designed to address their real deficits. Stated in another way, I am presently teaching the children of the students that I did not succeed in educatiing when I started teaching.
It is unrealistic to think that good curriculum, small schools, or any other educational reform will succeed unless it addresses the underlying linguistic deficits that objectively preclude my students from entering into the education process/dialogue. Our present educational system makes the false assumption that children arrive at the schoolroom door having already mastered the prerequisites necessary for meaningfully starting their education- this is not the case.
The idea of standards based instruction assumes that students in the 10th grade can be taught at 10th grade standards because it is falsely assumed that they have already mastered standards from grades 1 through 10, when the reality is that they continue to be socially promoted without having mastered even rudimentary skills. By the time they get to high school they are actually hostile to anyone who tells them that education is not just about copying answers from a book without understanding the answers.
Students so educated find school boring, because they don't understand the language on which instruction is based. This leads to the incessant disruption of class from students whose behavior makes it impossible for even the most dedicated teacher to succeed- 50% of new teachers quite within 5 years.
In other societies that have been required to educate large populations of working class foreign populations without the linguistic basis in any language to easily achieve this goal, several approaches have been used:
1. In France, foreign students are given one and sometimes two years of "France special" classes where no other course but French is taught until the students have an adequate skill level in French to succeed. While initially students fall behind there age group, they ultimately catch up and achieve at a much higher rate than our similiarly impacted students do. Language mastery is the fundemental tool of social and cultural integration.
In addition, the French Lycee International has 12 national sections where students are dual immersed in their culture of origin and French culture.
2. In Sweden in the 1960's, there was a critical shortage of workers in this country with a negative population growth. The Swedes found their foreign work force in India. However, the critical difference between their experience and ours is that they initially educated that population in their native Indian dialect before even attempting to educate them in Swedish- while initally an expensive proposition, this and other "foreign" populations have been seamlessly assimilated into Swedish society while maintaining significant elements of their country of origin- such a result is far less expensive in the long run.
Rather than a patronizing optimism that can only disappoint a student in a system that is designed for them not to succeed, why not:
1. Lessen class size. Money is spent on everything else...hmm
2. Make compensation of public schools by the state based on results and not warm bodies in seats- end Average Daily Attendance ADA.
3. Get the whites with the social capital necessary to reform public schools back into the process and out of the private schools- no one wants to spend $20,000 per kid to get them educated if the local school can do the job.
4. Lessen inflated bureaucracies that serve their careers and not the difficult work of educating students. This will naturally change if administration is not seen as upward job mobility from being a teacher.
5. Make public education a privilege and not a right. If you want to tear up the school, go home or into the work force until you understand the value of education as a measure of your chances for a successful future- a little time selling fastfood can go a long way in educating future students to this reality.
6. Do not harbor a racist view of Blacks and Latinos that does really want them to be educated because it might disturb our endless supply of cheap labor or question 350 years of negative Black stereotypes.
The other night I went to a screening of the latest up Hollywood film- it was called Freedom Writers. What is totally unreal about this film, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, and all the others, is that it assumes that once a loving and supportive teacher has gotten these students to trust her, they will read and write and do math like a combination of Toni Morrison and Albert Einstein. The fundamental skills necessary to succeed cannot be attained starting in high school, but rather must start out in elementary school and before, where the school is the plaza of the neighborhood where mothers to be, parents, and students can get the nurturing they need at an appropriate age before it is too late for them and their children.
After teaching for over 21
Submitted by Leonard Isenberg (not verified) on December 6, 2006 - 00:52.
After teaching for over 21 years in both the United States and France, I have come to the following conclusions as to what would make a measurably difference in our students chances for success:
The problems that my students suffer from are generational and cannot be addressed by unwarranted optimistic edspeak and encouragement without substantive and pragmatic changes designed to address their real deficits. Stated in another way, I am presently teaching the children of the students that I did not succeed in educatiing when I started teaching.
It is unrealistic to think that good curriculum, small schools, or any other educational reform will succeed unless it addresses the underlying linguistic deficits that objectively preclude my students from entering into the education process/dialogue. Our present educational system makes the false assumption that children arrive at the schoolroom door having already mastered the prerequisites necessary for meaningfully starting their education- this is not the case.
The idea of standards based instruction assumes that students in the 10th grade can be taught at 10th grade standards because it is falsely assumed that they have already mastered standards from grades 1 through 10, when the reality is that they continue to be socially promoted without having mastered even rudimentary skills. By the time they get to high school they are actually hostile to anyone who tells them that education is not just about copying answers from a book without understanding the answers.
Students so educated find school boring, because they don't understand the language on which instruction is based. This leads to the incessant disruption of class from students whose behavior makes it impossible for even the most dedicated teacher to succeed- 50% of new teachers quite within 5 years.
In other societies that have been required to educate large populations of working class foreign populations without the linguistic basis in any language to easily achieve this goal, several approaches have been used:
1. In France, foreign students are given one and sometimes two years of "France special" classes where no other course but French is taught until the students have an adequate skill level in French to succeed. While initially students fall behind there age group, they ultimately catch up and achieve at a much higher rate than our similiarly impacted students do. Language mastery is the fundemental tool of social and cultural integration.
In addition, the French Lycee International has 12 national sections where students are dual immersed in their culture of origin and French culture.
2. In Sweden in the 1960's, there was a critical shortage of workers in this country with a negative population growth. The Swedes found their foreign work force in India. However, the critical difference between their experience and ours is that they initially educated that population in their native Indian dialect before even attempting to educate them in Swedish- while initally an expensive proposition, this and other "foreign" populations have been seamlessly assimilated into Swedish society while maintaining significant elements of their country of origin- such a result is far less expensive in the long run.
Rather than a patronizing optimism that can only disappoint a student in a system that is designed for them not to succeed, why not:
1. Lessen class size. Money is spent on everything else...hmm
2. Make compensation of public schools by the state based on results and not warm bodies in seats- end Average Daily Attendance ADA.
3. Get the whites with the social capital necessary to reform public schools back into the process and out of the private schools- no one wants to spend $20,000 per kid to get them educated if the local school can do the job.
4. Lessen inflated bureaucracies that serve their careers and not the difficult work of educating students. This will naturally change if administration is not seen as upward job mobility from being a teacher.
5. Make public education a privilege and not a right. If you want to tear up the school, go home or into the work force until you understand the value of education as a measure of your chances for a successful future- a little time selling fastfood can go a long way in educating future students to this reality.
6. Do not harbor a racist view of Blacks and Latinos that does really want them to be educated because it might disturb our endless supply of cheap labor or question 350 years of negative Black stereotypes.
The other night I went to a screening of the latest up Hollywood film- it was called Freedom Writers. What is totally unreal about this film, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, and all the others, is that it assumes that once a loving and supportive teacher has gotten these students to trust her, they will read and write and do math like a combination of Toni Morrison and Albert Einstein. The fundamental skills necessary to succeed cannot be attained starting in high school, but rather must start out in elementary school and before, where the school is the plaza of the neighborhood where mothers to be, parents, and students can get the nurturing they need at an appropriate age before it is too late for them and their children.