Society for Quality Education

Volume19, Number 3, September 2010. ISSN-1201-215

FROM THE PRESIDENT

In this issue are some great articles and information on such things as printing for southpaws, free educational videos, all-day kindergarten, boys' problems in schools, little-known teaching techniques, and much more. Be sure to read right to the end, because we always have something completely different at the bottom!

Last issue, we asked you whether you supported school vouchers. The majority of respondents (79%) indicated their support. This month, we're asking which type of school you would choose for your child if money or place of residence was no object. You can vote in this month's poll by clicking here and then scrolling down to the bottom of the page. At press time, the poll was showing that a majority of respondents (59%) would choose a private school for their child if they could.

Please feel free to get in touch with me, either in the form of a letter to the editor or as a general query or comment. I love to hear from you.

Best regards, Malkin

MAIL BAG

Tying Teachers' Hands

I was particularly interested in the submission entitled "Spoiled Kids" by a teacher in Ontario. His (or her) story bears close resemblance to an incident that occurred to me a few years back. While my students were writing a test, one student near the back said he was confused about one of the test questions and, before I could respond, a student seated at the front (where I was standing, with something in my hands) shouted out the answer to the test question. In exasperation, I kicked the leg of the student's desk and, if I recall correctly, said something like: "It's a test! Be quiet!" The next day, the principal called me into his office to discuss the matter, as the student had quickly run off to complain to him as soon as the class ended. I was not reprimanded, only cautioned about intemperate reactions, but the incident told me that the complaint of a misbehaving student received more attention than the student's infraction - and I'm sure that is what the student learned as well. Halifax, NS

The Scoop on Teacher Assignments

The process by which teacher subject assignments and timetables are scheduled is one of the system's dirty little secrets (among many). Perhaps not to your surprise, the decision process whereby teachers are assigned to specific classes often does not depend on the teachers' qualifications. Instead, the department heads first "skim" or "assign" the subjects they like best to themselves or favoured members in the department and then assign the other (less desirable) sections to other department members. I am aware of one school where a teacher with no previous experience was assigned a senior university prep course - because the teacher with the needed experience and knowledge refused to teach it. Yes, it is a department head. And, as a result of this head's repeated refusals in the past, the university prep course has had five different teachers in five years. London, ON

Bring Back Inspectors

It's too bad inspectors went out of fashion (even though a few of them were little better than fuss-budgets). The thing is that people do what is inspected of them - rather than what is expected of them. A terrific inspector I once knew was always in conversation "happening" to mention something very interesting he's "happened" to notice various teachers doing. When I was a young and very naive teacher, this inspector knocked on my door and suggested I give the class something to do and then come out and chat. Rather bewildered, I asked "But don't you want to watch a lesson?" His reply was that he'd already sniffed the atmosphere. I thought he was crazy at the time, but later realized that atmosphere was most revealing! Toronto, ON

Math Gender Gap

It used to be that girls didn't like math so they took English, French, history, and biology. Then along came the new math, where everyone had to write about math and express their feelings about math and so forth. Now there is a math gender gap, against guys, who think the whole schtick is a bunch of nonsense - along with some of us teachers..... Barrie, ON

ASK AUNT MALKIN

A veteran of the school wars herself, with the scars to prove it, Malkin Dare always has lots of advice to offer. If you want some been-there-done-that advice from Aunt Malkin, call her at 519-884-3166 or e-mail her.

Question

Are there any resources that you could recommend for a left-handed five-year-old who is having great difficulty learning to print? I have done some reading about hand placement, but I am wondering where I could get printing books that cater to lefties. Lorna, Toronto

Answer

The short answer is to consult Kate Gladstone, the handwriting repairwoman. She is an expert who does phone and Internet consultations.

Here are a few additional tips.

Have your child use short pencils, like golf pencils, since they make it impossible to use the closed-grip fist.
Train the tripod grip.
An italic style is probably preferable to the usual circles and sticks, since it's easier for a lefty or a child with motor difficulties to form the letters and makes it impossible for it to turn into a scribble when speeded up. It also facilitates a transition to modified cursive later on.
Click here for another useful website.
In Ontario, occupational therapy is provided for children free of charge by the Community Care Access Centres, provided that the school agrees to make the referral. If the child is home-schooled, I believe a physician referral is sufficient.

As with most things in education, it's really important not to let a bad printing habit become entrenched, because it is so hard to eradicate later on. Even better is to get it right the first time!

Regards, Aunt Malkin

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The following is a guest editorial by Kate Tennier about Ontario's new early learning program. For more information, click here.

Dalton McGuinty's strangely-labelled "Full-Day Early Learning Program" (as if children aren't already learning every minute of the day) starts up this month in 600 Ontario schools. By September 2015, the goal is to have all four- and five-year-olds, as well as some three-year-olds, in school full-time. Every person I talk to has a different concern, all serious.

First, there is the problem with child-to-adult ratios. Current daycare programs boast very small classes, with no more than eight children per adult. And the 85% of Ontario's preschoolers still receiving the bulk of their care and education in the home - whether with their parents or home-based daycare - benefit from extremely healthy ratios, some as low as one-to-one. The government's program, however, could see as many as 30 youngsters in a classroom with only two adults - all day long.

Then there is the issue of cost. On a societal level, we can ill afford this program. Just when Ontario has become a have-not province and the government is projecting a $25-billion deficit, it has chosen to introduce a horrendously-expensive experimental program with costs that will escalate each year.

Furthermore, the new act allowing for all-day early schooling mandates that existing non-profit, school-based childcare for this age group be replaced by government-run daycares. However, there are reports that along with the possibility of no coverage on school holidays or PA days - and no hot lunches - parents' daycare costs may actually go up under the new regime.

While numerous other problems have been cited - including the fact that similar programs in other jurisdictions have not been proven to help disadvantaged children and that half-day kindergarten would no longer be a truly viable option for the many parents who prefer it, the most serious concern is parental disempowerment. Even though polls indicate that most Ontarians believe that childcare decisions should remain in parents' hands, the government has decided to override them and presume to know - better than the parents themselves - what is best for their children.

Fortunately, all-day kindergarten for all Ontario kids is not a done deal. During the campaign leading up to the next election in October 2011, Ontario parents should question the various candidates about their stance on all-day kindergarten and vote for the one who promises to allow parents to choose the best option for their own children.

WHAT'S NEW?

Go to our blog, School for Thought, for fast-breaking education news, helpful teaching tips, and heated debates. Join in the conversation.

BOOKS OF INTEREST

The Grammar School: Striving for excellence for 50 years in a public school world. Paul Bennett

This book tells the story of Halifax's Grammar School, a private school that is now a venerable and hugely-influential institution - but it was not always thus. Written in a very readable and engaging style by a former headmaster, the book illustrates how difficult it is to create and maintain a good school. The author documents the school's problems with attracting students; schisms, including a breakaway school; struggles with buildings and mortgages; strong personalities and heated resignations; and much more. The excerpt illustrates how hard it was for the school to resist Whole Language when it began to wash over the local public schools in the eighties.

Excerpt (p. 57)

"While the Board steadfastly defended the dismissal of Lankester and reaffirmed its full confidence in the headmaster, the issue refused to die. The Prep School faculty appeared calm on the surface, but the Whole Language conflict took its toll and seeped out into the parent community. The new Prep teacher hired to replace Lankester, Marjorie Cooper, was caught in the crossfire between parents and teachers over Whole Language. By mid-October 1986, she was deeply distressed by 'the sniping at Whole Language' and had to be talked out of quitting by the new head of Prep, Joanne Thompson. Following a rancorous Special General meeting in late November 1986, Montgomery took stock of the situation and was deeply distressed by the internal divisions. He waited until February 1987 and then - with the controversy still lingering - announced his intention to resign at year's end....

"The Whole Language controversy and the Lankester affairs had a lasting impact. A solid core of HGS faculty, mostly based in the Upper School, had succeeded in dealing a death blow to Whole Language and in reaffirming HGS's commitment to high standards, fundamental skills, intellectual rigour and a challenging curriculum."

Learning As We Go: Why school choice is worth the wait. Paul T. Hill

The lack of stunning gains for American school choice programs (charter schools in 43 states and vouchers or tuition tax credits in about a dozen jurisdictions) has emboldened critics and dismayed supporters alike. This book posits that, while the theories behind the school choice movement are correct, they fail to take into consideration "the real-world factors that can complicate, delay, and even in some instances interfere with the cause and effect relationships identified by the theories behind school choice". These real-world factors include political opposition, entrenched systems, inevitable time lags, and the complexity of creating good schools. The excerpt elaborates on the forces behind political opposition to school choice.

Excerpt (pp. 21-22)

"School choice threatens to upset existing patterns of resource allocation and substantive decision-making. It is too simple to say that the interests standing against choice are those that now benefit most from the existing arrangements in public education - but only a little. There are individuals and groups with no children in schools and no personal financial interests at stake who nonetheless adhere to the ideas sketched above. Moreover, some families that could exercise choices that might benefit their children educationally avoid doing so, out of a belief that keeping their children in traditional public schools is an act of civic virtue.

"However, the main interests at stake are those of people whose jobs, incomes or positions of power depend on the current arrangements in public education. These groups include current public school employees, particularly permanent district central office staff, state school officials, and teachers' unions.

"These groups have strong interests in keeping key decisions within traditional channels. Most choice plans eliminate automatic spending on state and district bureaucracies, requiring instead that funds flow first to the schools parents choose and then to external service providers only if schools decide to buy their services. These provisions threaten bureaucracies that now control as much as half the money available for public education and offer guaranteed life-time employment to their staffs.

Most choice plans also transfer authority for teacher-hiring and pay-setting to individual schools. This further weakens the central bureaucracies that are now staffed to hire and allocate teachers. More importantly, it undercuts teachers' unions in two ways. By making individual schools the employers of teachers, choice would render district-wide collective bargaining units moot: teachers would organize at the school rather than district level. Teachers' unions would therefore lose the capacity to control teacher pay and working conditions for a whole district with one collective bargaining agreement. They would also be at risk of losing members as teachers in some schools might choose not to unionize..."

Teach Like a Champion: 49 techniques that put students on the path to college. Doug Lemov

This book names and codifies effective teaching practices. As the author points out, "artists, athletes, musicians, surgeons, and performers of a thousand other varieties achieve greatness only by their attention to the details of their technique. Because the vast majority of teacher training institutions completely ignore technique, the book would be far more valuable to prospective teachers than an entire year at most faculties of education. The excerpt illustrates a technique called "Name the Steps", just one of dozens of seemingly very simple - but amazingly effective - techniques teachers can use to increase how much their students learn.

Excerpt (p. 78)

"One of my soccer coaches had been an all-world superstar as a player. As coach, he'd stand on the sidelines and shout, 'Defense, you guys! Defense!!' We were pretty aware that we were on defense, though, and also pretty aware we weren't playing it especially well....

"When I started to play for another coach, I realized how a coach might also be a teacher. The other coach broke defense down into a series of steps. First, position yourself increasingly closer to your man as he gets closer to the player with the ball. Second, deny the ball if and only if you are certain you can intercept. Third, prevent your man from turning if he is facing away from the goal. Fourth, steer your man toward the sidelines if he has the ball and has turned. Fifth, tackle if you must. Sixth, otherwise keep position between him and the goal.

"He focused his coaching (before the game rather than during!) on reminding us what step came next. If my man got the ball, he would gently remind me 'Don't let him turn'. If I let him turn (I usually did), he would say, 'Take him wide'. If, as was often the case, I found myself unsuccessful, he would say, 'If you must....', a reminder that keeping my position between the player and the goal was more important than winning the ball. For years after I stopped playing for him I'd recall his steps ('If you must') while I played. Once I asked the second coach how he thought to teach the way he did. His reply was revealing: 'That was the only way I could learn it.'

"If you are teaching in your area of skill and passion, you likely have more intuition (natural or learned) than your students do, and you can help them succeed by subdividing complex skills into component tasks and building knowledge up systematically. Champion teachers name the steps by habit (knowing how to do this is perhaps their superstar intuition).

"They traffic in recipes: the five steps to combining sentences with the same subject; the four steps to regrouping; the six parts of a great literary response. Their students learn the steps, refer to the map they provide as they are developing competence, and then leave the steps behind when they are familiar enough with the recipe to forget they are following it. Perhaps they even add their own variations and flourishes. For most, this is the path to becoming a virtuoso."

What's Wrong With Our Schools: And how we can fix them. Michael Zwaagstra, Rod Clifton, and John Long

This book is intended mainly for parents who are aware that their kids aren't learning enough in school but don't really understand why. It's a very sane, commonsensical treatment of a complicated topic, full of been-there-done-that wisdom and practical explanations for parents who are scratching their heads over school practices that don't make. The excerpt comes from the chapter entitled "Direct Instruction is Good Teaching".

Excerpt (pp. 108-09)

"It is revealing that virtually all romantic progressive educators use direct instruction methods when they are trying to convince teachers to adopt their child-centered methodologies. For example, Alfie Kohn, one of the strongest critics of direct instruction, gives dozens of lectures every year trying to persuade teachers not to lecture. Why does he not abandon the lecture format when it is apparently so ineffective? The reason is obvious. Kohn only has a short time to convey his ideas and he realizes that the most effective way of doing it is in a formal presentation that he has composed and organized. Is it not somewhat ironic that Kohn condemns lecturing as an outdated teaching method while lecturing to his audience?

"What about the old-fashioned practice of lining desks up in rows so that the students are facing the teacher who is at the front of the classroom? Kohn also dislikes this practice. In fact, he claims that any classroom with desks in rows should make parents worry about the quality of the education their children are receiving. Moreover, he says that the classroom where rows of desks face the teacher encourages students to think that teachers are the only source of information and the only reliable interpreters of the subject matter. In his mind, students in these classrooms become passive rather than active learners.

"But when Kohn talks to groups of teachers, how are they seated? You've probably guessed correctly: the audience is facing him and hardly anyone is sitting in groups talking to each other. The same thing is true at most teachers' in-service sessions where teachers hear the new ideas about modern methods of guiding students' learning. Even when speakers are arguing against the old-fashioned methods, like direct instruction, the audience is almost always sitting in rows facing the speakers who are almost always standing on a stage. Obviously, everyone seems to accept that the speakers have something useful to say and the audience is expected to be quiet and pay attention to them."

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

This site provides links to the best free educational videos around. The list is very comprehensive, including everything from free math lessons to MIT lectures to your favourite PBS shows including Frontline and Nova, and 30,000 video segments from Discovery Education.