A RUNNING RECORD
OF OUR CHAT:
"REINVENTING THE MIDDLE SCHOOL"
DISCUSSION
Here's a rough archive of our conversation
about "Reinventing the Middle School." A summary of the conversation's
key points will be posted soon at MiddleWeb.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
John Norton welcomed everyone to the discussion:
This message marks the official beginning of our discussion about "Reinventing
the Middle School."
As most of you know, this chat will use the recent Middle School Journal
article by Tom Dickinson and Deborah Butler as a springboard. From there,
we will go where the discussion leads us!
If you haven't read the article, it's available in the September issue of
MSJ, and can also be downloaded online in PDF format at:
http://www.middleweb.com/MiddleWebimages/reinventing.pdf
I've set up a "homepage" for this discussion, which will include
a link to a running record of our chat:
http://www.middleweb.com/MWLresources/reinventing.html
In my next message, which will follow almost immediately, I'll pose a "starter"
question suggested by Tom.
Meanwhile, here are brief bios of our three guests:
Tom Dickinson teaches at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Deborah Butler teaches at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Tom
and Deborah, who are married to each other, have two grown daughters (and
a new grandson who just turned one!). They live in the small and cozy town
of Greencastle, Indiana with their three cats. Both began their careers
teaching young adolescents and while they are now college professors they
continue to focus on middle schools and young adolescents.
Hayes Mizell is director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Edna
McConnell Clark Foundation, where he has led the foundation's efforts to
support middle grades reform for more than a decade. He's a founder of the
National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform, which also supports the
(Middle) "Schools to Watch" website. Before joining the foundation,
Mizell was a school activist in the Southeast for 20 years and chaired the
National Title One Council during the Carter administration. He also served
two terms as a school board member in Columbia, SC.
See this speech by Mizell to find out more about his views:
"What Works? Who Cares?"
http://www.middleweb.com/HMcares.html
Welcome, and let's begin. Question is next!
John Norton, Editor
MiddleWeb
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then John wrote:
TOM DICKINSON AND DEBORAH BUTLER POSE THIS OPENING COMMENT AND QUESTION:
We have asserted a number of critical points which serve as a foundation
for the MSJ theme issue "Reinventing the Middle School" (and the
book of the same name):
a. there is nothing wrong with the middle school concept;
b. most middle schools are in some stage of "arrested development;"
c. to alleviate this problem we need to "reinvent" middle schools
in
accordance with what the original founders of this movement articulated
while deepening our understanding of the concept.
From your perspective and your daily practice, do these assertions "hold
water" or "ring true"? What do you see happening in the movement--in
your
team, grade level, school, district--that supports these assertions?
JOHN adds this note: As you respond to this question, you might comment
on your perception of what "the middle school concept" is....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anne Jolly wrote:
I agree with all three of the assertions Tom and Deborah posed in their
opening email on "Reinventing the Middle School."
> a. there is nothing wrong with the middle school concept;
The middle school concept is a refreshing approach to working with young
adolescents and pre-adolescents. Properly implemented, it can be the key
to
continuing their emotional, physical, and social development rather than
putting their lives on hold through these tough years.
> b. most middle schools are in some stage of "arrested development;"
This was certainly true of the middle schools in which I've taught. My most
recent experience was in a brand new middle school that was organized around
the "model middle school" approach. We had all of the structures
in place.
We had a building designed with teaching team pods and each teaching team
had their own planning/work room. We had both a team planning time and a
personal planning time for one year. We had a new, enthusiastic staff, and
we had two weeks of training prior to the opening of school.
Most of our training focused on how to schedule students (teams assumed
that
responsibility), on "rah rah" sessions where we met fellow teachers
and
decided on ways to get the students pumped up about being on teams. We even
decided on the team names ourselves, and worked on lists of rules, dress
codes, etc. What we did not focus on was instruction and curriculum. We
also neglected the team-building experiences that we needed to build our
ability to work together. We were instructed to write at least one
interdisciplinary unit, and all of us were previously secondary teachers.
None of us had ever worked with other teachers collaboratively. We went
through the motions but didn't honestly have much of a clue as to how to
proceed.
I can't honestly claim that we were in a stage of arrested development,
because I don't think we ever developed as a true middle school. After one
year, class loads went up to 180 students per day, we lost a planning
period, and teachers began teaching six fifty-minute classes per day. At
that point we just went into survival mode.
> c. to alleviate this problem we need to "reinvent" middle
schools
Cheers to this! And we must concentrate as hard on the support structures
and the teacher development needs as we do on setting up the middle school
organization scenario.
Anne Jolly
SERVE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Toy wrote:
MWbooklist@NS.SREB.ORG writes:
>The middle school concept is a refreshing approach to working with young
>adolescents and pre-adolescents. Properly implemented, it can be the
key to
>continuing their emotional, physical, and social development rather
than
>putting their lives on hold through these tough years.
The only thing I would add here is not to leave out academic and
intellectual development. That's been the most pointed and consistent
criticism I've encountered from parents.
Chris Toy
Principal
Freeport Middle School
Freeport, Maine 04032
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linda Haskell wrote:
Most middle schools are in some stage of "arrested development;"-
Boy does this ever describe my school. Ten years ago we jumped in with both
feet and did everything- teams, looping, advisory, enrichment,etc. It was
so much fun. However, many of those teachers have retired or moved on to
new jobs. Did we burn ourselves out? Now all we have left is teaming- staff
keeps leaving and new people are hired without any staff development on
middle school beliefs,etc. We still loop but class sizes are growing- 125+
per team so administration is talking about adding in new part time people
who will not be on a team but just teaching the overflow. Advisory is down
to once a week for 20 min. on Mondays, when there is one, with no plan or
guidelines for teachers.
To alleviate this problem we need to "reinvent" middle schools
in accordance with what the original founders of this movement articulated
while deepening our understanding of the concept. - Yes, we need to make
the time for staff development and work through this again. The problem
is that the "old-timers" say- Been there, done that", and
think they know it all but aren't using it. Then new people weren't hired
for their middle school beliefs- there is a teacher shortage- just get someone
qualified in the "subject area" to teach. It's hard to keep current
in knowledge and without a push, most teachers don't. Many of our staff
development days seem thrown together at the last minute and divided into
three different "projects". There is no time to reflect and really
work on anything. Also, state mandates and requirements seem to take up
all our time. We constantly feel the pull between taking the time to "bond"
with our students doing "fun" things like bowling or making ornaments
for the school tree and having the students keep working to meet the standards.
Linda
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Wallace responded to Tom and Deborah's key points:
>a. there is nothing wrong with the middle school concept;
From what I think about the concept--building a community of learners, an
adult advocate for each child, small teams within a larger school, interdisciplinary
and integrated curriculum, authentic learning outside of the classroom walls,
activities that are developmentally consistent--I believe there is nothing
wrong with the concept.
>b. most middle schools are in some stage of "arrested development;"
From what I hear at conferences, and what little I know of surrounding schools,
but most of all from what I experience every day, we are arrested.
In our school, several sixth grade teachers wanted to change to teams in
the mid-80s, let's say, 1986. They explored the concept, they visited schools
outside of the area to see what it was all about, they changed the name
of homeroom to advisor class. They did change the sixth grade. The problem
was, before they implemented the changes, three of the six who discussed
it, left teaching.
So, the rest of us were saying, what is this team stuff anyway. I wanted
to teach social studies only to the sixth graders. That's why I left elementary
school! I didn't want to teach reading, writing, math, science and social
studies. I wanted to teach social studies! I didn't know nuttin'!!!! Gradually
over the next decade, that's right, decade, the seventh and eighth grades
developed into teams--but still teaching their own subject areas because
of certification issues and because department chairmen controlled the evaluation,
observations, and most important the budget.
Teams eventually got their budget up to $200 per team. Which is where we
are today. I have gone from knowing nothing (see above) to knowing quite
a bit--well, perhaps knowing is the wrong term in the constructive sense.
So.......I'm not going to take it anymore. It's time to change!!
>c. to alleviate this problem we need to "reinvent" middle
schools in >accordance with what the original founders of this movement
articulated >while deepening our understanding of the concept.
Yes, that is true. And that is exactly what I am attempting to do with a
variety of colleagues from different grade levels, departments and teams.
If our school was a democracy, and we could vote on where we want our junior
high to go, it would go to teaming for sure. In our recently completed informal
and scientifically survey of the staff, it turned out to be 85% teaming,
10% departments, and 5% didn't know what we were talking about. Of the 85%,
about two-thirds know for sure. The other one-third talk the talk, but I'm
unsure about walking the walk. We need to educate everyone with the choices
and what I see are the advantages.
So, that is my introduction to the introductory questions. I look forward
to hearing more.
Jack Wallace
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marsha Ratzel wrote:
Is there something wrong with MS concept? No.
My experience in each of the areas mention on p7 of the article.
Teachers organized into teams that meet
I would say this part of the MS concept is strong. Quite a bit of cross
team planning goes on as well as across the entire grade level. In most
of our seven MS, teams use one plan time for doing individual tasks like
grading, making copies, answering phone calls; and the other for meeting
with their teammates, all the grade level teachers or with the various building
specialists (counselor, LD teachers, gifted teachers). What I think is missing
from these planning sessions, is integrating skills and strategies across
content areas and/or with the explo programs.
Unification between core and exploratory teachers
This is definitely an area of needed improvement. It varies by team, by
school and by time of the year. There are pockets of building-wide collaboration,
for sure. But not to the same extent there was in the first half of the
90s. We used to have building wide themes for the year and much of our library
media programs revolved around winding that theme in and out of all grade
levels and explos. It was very exciting.
Advisory programs
Another area of variability in our MSs. We have had some schedule changes
that dramatically changed the MS day and wiped out the idea of a unified
time the entire building was engaged in advisement. Sure some teachers used
it for a study hall, but more worked hard at establishing a rapport with
a small group of kids and helping them navigate through their year. A schedule
change meant our explo teachers could no longer serve as an advisor for
groups of students and those goals had to be incorporated into other content
areas. But this has been a strength of the district,s MS program in the
past and it may just be a case of needing to figure out work it out given
the new schedule.
Competitive athletics for all
Athletics and drama is strong in our MSs. All are "no cut programs
and literally hundreds of students participate in each school during the
year. It,s amazing. Since neither of these programs are available for sixth
graders, many MSs have developed a well attended and active after school
intramural program. Our district is struggling under a huge budget cut this
year and next and I can,t imagine that MS sports will not be targeted for
some reductions (everything else is), so it will be interesting to see what
happens.
Curriculum
Again I see this as an area of strength in our MSs. We certainly have struggles,
but overall I don,t see the "cemetery model of instruction, heavy reliance
on textbooks or instructional blandness. The district has just completed
a huge round of curriculum revisions, aligning what we do with national
standards and making sure the vertical articulation was in place. Teachers
are VERY encouraged to employ active learning strategies and we are slowly
making inroads to learning to use assessments to guide instruction. The
new K-8 math curriculum for example, is a problem solving based curriculum
that requires students to discover the whys behind symbolic manipulation.
That being said, we are a long way from having an integrated curriculum.
On the smaller teams where teachers have more than one core subject, it
happens much more frequently than on larger teams. I know that there is
a deep division among the faculty about the merits of integration because
many don,t see how it can be rigorous and integrated.
So I guess, all of what I just said would mean we have some stage of "arrested
development in our schools. I would think, "reinventing for our schools
and district must revolve around an effort to convince others that the MS
concept is the best course. We cannot be passive in these important years
--- I passionately believe that MS students are ready, willing and able
to meet any challenge if the environment is correctly set. I,ve seen it
and been inspired by the deep thinking and excitement that happens when
we do the things we know are best for this age group.
I don't know if many, if any, other teachers would think we need to do this,
though. I don't have any idea what our administration thinks. (I asked the
Director of K-12 Schools to join our conversation, though because she "gets"
lots of this and would offer a very practical insight.) I think my district's
biggest challenge is how to avoid budget cut paralysis and stop moving forward.
Cutting back doesn't mean that we should get so occupied with $$$ that we
stop pushing ourselves forward. Much easier said than done.
Marsha Ratzel
Overland Park, KS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Selby wrote:
Marsha poses some good points on these questions.
As a member of a team for over ten years now, I wholeheartedly agree on
the strength of teaming at the middle level. The planning time is important,
and I am very lucky to have a common prep with my team partners.
Unification between core and exploratory teachers
I agree that this is a definite area that needs improvement in my school,
because there is no connections right now. One of the reasons is that many
of our students lose out on their exploratory classes because they are not
reading at grade level.
Advisory programs
I am a huge supporter of Advisory programs if they are used effectively.
We have a 15 period to start each day, where we can discuss issues that
relate to the student's lives, organize their notebook and minds, as well
as do some team building. One thing that we do that I really like is we
get our Advisory as sixth graders, and keep them until they go onto high
school. It allows us to really build rapport with them.
Competitive athletics for all
In San Diego City Schools, we have no competitive athletics at the middle
level, so I have no comment on this, other than the fact that I am jealous
that schools actually have this in other parts of the country.
Curriculum
With the focus on standards, I have really seen an adjustment towards a
more rigorous curriculum at the middle level. I think the standards have
clarified things for teachers, such as a rubric does for students. I know
that the quality of work I expect now is much higher than it was ten years
ago. It is not that the students are more talented, but that the curriculum
is more focused and articulated.
Rick
San Diego City Schools
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Norton posted some quotes from the article:
For those of you who have not been able to access the "Reinventing
the Middle School" article, here's an excerpt that may help you grasp
the core issue being raised by Tom and Deborah.
**********
(I)f there is nothing wrong with the middle school concept, what is wrong
with many contemporary middle schools? In middle schools across this nation
the story is the same-schools with signs outside that say "middle school"
but with almost no identifiable aspects of the concept at work inside; teachers
organized into teams but who do not meet even though they have allocated
time in their schedules; a deep cleavage between core and exploratory teachers;
advisory programs that look like administrative homerooms; competitive athletics
for the few; and a curriculum dominated by classical recitation, boring
textbooks, and instructional blandness (McEwin, Dickinson, & Jenkins,
1996).
In school after school the words "middle school concept" has become
a phrase mindlessly uttered, but with no understanding of the real meaning
of the phrase. What has happened across this country at the middle level
is the arrested development of the middle school concept. While there are
many schools that have implemented the entire concept, the majority of middle
schools are in some stage of arrested development-where the middle school
concept has not been completely implemented, or where it was once implemented
and has now grown static and unresponsive (McEwin, Dickinson, & Jenkins,
1996). Arrested development then, is both a structural problem of the lack
of implementation as well as a disposition problem of belief in and attention
to the concept.
What misleads many middle level educators, what the movement has not made
a forceful argument over, is that the original concept is a totally integrated
ecology of schooling. It is an organizational, curricular, instructional
and relational environment that cannot be parsed or broken (Felner, Jackson,
Kasak, Mulhall, Brand & Flowers, 1997). Any attempt to do so, as in
many well-intentioned schools, leads to the condition of arrested development.
John
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Norton also posted this:
Chris Toy, who is on this list with us, wrote this diary entry for MiddleWeb
today. Since it relates to our discussion, I'm sure Chris won't mind if
I post it here as well. Perhaps it will prompt some of you to agree - or
take issue - or put your own spin on what he has to say. Thanks, Chris,
for the thoughtful comments!
John
================================
MIDDLEWEB PRINCIPAL'S DIARY
Chris Toy
Freeport (ME) Middle School
One of the backdrops for many of my activities this past week has been some
ongoing discussions about middle school reform. Maine's Middle Level Commission
and MiddleWeb's online discussion on reinventing the middle school are great
opportunities to reflect on the future of middle level education.
I continue to be somewhat mystified by the "dark cloud" hovering
over middle level education, especially in Maine. Maine is considered by
many to have one of the best public education systems in the country. It
seems that middle schools in Maine contribute significantly to our state's
standing nationally. A visit to the state's education website :
http://www.state.me.us/education/goodstories.htm
tells us that
-- Maine eighth graders placed sixth in the nation in Science on the 2000
National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).
-- Maine eighth graders placed third in the nation in Mathematics on the
2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
-- Maine eighth graders placed first in the nation in Reading on the 1998
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test results.
-- Maine eighth graders placed second, along with Massachusetts, in Writing
on the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
-- Maine eighth graders placed first in the nation in Science on the 1996
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Only students in Singapore
outperformed Maine eighth graders in Science in comparisons with the 41
countries participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science
Study (TIMMS - 1998).
-- Eighth graders also tied for first place in the nation in Mathematics
on the 1996 test. Only seven countries outperformed Maine eighth graders
in Mathematics in comparisons with the 41 countries participating in the
TIMMS - 1998.
I agree that there are many things that need to be improved for our students.
Teachers need to make sure their classrooms reflect effective practices.
We need to make sure there is equity of opportunity for all students, and
that they are held to high standards based on what current research tells
us is defensible. But, I still struggle with the perception that middle
level education isn't working for kids.
I think I got a clue when I asked a parent who had a couple children go
through our school and are now at the high school. She said that the middle
school feels unsettled and uncomfortable because, as a group, the children
in the middle years are in a state of transition and change,which is unsettling
to them and to their families.
This made sense to me. After all, how many of us would voluntarily return
to being 12 or 13 years old? I actually asked a number of adults this question,
and all 20 of them laughed, then replied along the lines of, "no way!,
Why would anyone what to relive that time of life? I then asked some parents
of older children whether they would want to return to being parents of
children who were 12 or 13 years old. Again, without exception, experienced
parents replied that those were the most difficult times for them, their
spouses and their children.
It makes some sense then, that the middle years in schools would be challenging
years. I guess my concern is for the teachers and other folks who work with
these students and their families. Many of them work very hard to help these
students through what may be the most confusing and difficult times. They
balance academic, social, physical, and emotional changes while trying to
help all student realize their potential in each of these areas.
The message that middle schools are not working for its students needs to
be tempered with the recognition that many students are achieving and growing
under the care and guidance of hardworking, skilled teachers running child
centered programs.
Chris
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After some technical difficulties, the conversation resumed with great
enthusiasm!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Anne Jolly" <jolly61@home.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Reventing - - - How?
First - I agree with Marsha that money is a critical issue in reinventing
(or maintaining) middle schools. In our system, we lost 17 middle schools
because of lack of money to hire enough personnel to implement the middle
school concept and beacuse of pure old politics (Why are these middle schools
getting the money and attention when [fill in the blank with any other level]
needs it just as badly?) So the issue of priorities and funding must be
prominent if we ever have full implementation of the middle school model.
Now, I may be out of line jumping in here with questions about the "Reinventing
Middle Schools" article before we've all responded to the initial three
questions. If so, I have every confidence that John will set us all straight
and I'll put this question on hold. However, this question is particularly
near and dear to my heart.
The article states: ". . . movement toward developing and implementing
the concept requires the awareness and understanding of the middle school
concept as an ecology of highly complex elements working simultaneously
together. Across all of these articles is the notion that implementing the
whole of the concent's elements is absolutely fundamental."
My question - does this mean that success depends on simultaneous implementation
of all middle school program components? I rather hope not, as that would
"doom" schools who begin with the pieces they are able to implement
and struggle to add remaining components as allowed.
Thomas and Deborah use the term middle school "ecology." I like
that! I rely on my science knowledge for the meaning of the word ecology.
. . it brings to mind an interrelated system of living and non-living components
that exist together interdependently. That's a great middle school analogy.
However, all of the ecological components don't spontaneously appear - they
grow and become part of the system at different rates. So I'm hoping that
reinvention can be effective if it takes place in stages!
Anne
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Marsha Ratzel" <marsha_ratzel@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Reventing - - - How?
Anne, This is exactly what I was wondering about as well. But I think your
notion of an ecological system (I'm a science teacher at heart, too) is
a good one.
Interdependence doesn't mean that everythings the same. When it works well,
it means that there is a balance of individual components. And when things
are out of balance, the organism works to bring those out-of-bound pieces
into balance.
That self-correcting mechanism is what I think we're missing. I'll have
to think about whether or not it's because we're too busy, too overwhelmed,
or too worried about the implications of corrections. In my case, maybe
I just got too self-absorbed into content and forgot to stay on top of the
Big Picture and the research that supported the notion of excellence through
that Big Picture. I really don't know. This article and discussion have
me really thinking about what's so different than when I arrived in MS in
the early 90s?
Marsha Ratzel
Editor's Note: Marsha is a MiddleWeb diarist.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ellen Berg <ellen@accessus.net>
Subject: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
> a. there is nothing wrong with the middle school concept;
I agree. I think the middle school concept seeks to put the whole child
(academic, social, emotional) at the center of everything we do, and I have
always believed that the true goal of education should be to develop and
nuture the whole child.
> b. most middle schools are in some stage of "arrested development;"
Oh my goodness, yes. I see and hear a lot of lipservice to middle school
concepts (teaming, advisory, looping, etc.), but it is just that. So much
in my own school is only on paper. Anything that is actually mandated by
administration is followed to the letter, not the spirit of the idea. We
never get beyond the surface of the concept, and that frustrates me tremendously.
> c. to alleviate this problem we need to "reinvent" middle
schools in accordance with what the original founders of this movement articulated
while deepening our understanding of the concept.
We can reinvent middle schools all we want, but if we do not have committed,
well-trained staff dedicated to deeping their own understandings and building
upon them, nothing will change. The concept cannot simply be mandated (this
is what we're going to do, so do it...), because we can comply and look
as if we are following the mandate, but not really be doing anything effective.
For most people a real paradigm shift or attitude adjustment is necessary,
because so many folks are either used to teaching for their own convenience
or have seen that model throughout their lives and teach the way they were
taught.
It seems that so much of what we do in terms of professional development
is counterproductive. We attend a lot of hit and run workshops that fail
to help teachers explore various aspects of the middle school concept and
effective instruction in depth. We are not taught or expected to be reflective.
Teacher and staff talk is limited to budget items and administrivia. So
little time is spent building our understandings with one another, and so
in many schools the middle school concept is not in practice. You might
find a team or an individual teacher who is doing his/her best, but these
isolated cases fail to effect the type of results we would see if everyone
was on board.
So, that leads me to a question....the seventh grade teacher and I (IMHO)
do a pretty good job of putting our students at the center of our instruction,
and we try to use what we can from the middle school ideals. However, the
8th grade teacher is a good, old-fashioned grammar book them to death type
of teacher--straight rows, quiet, no interaction, no deep understanding.
I am wondering, is there any lasting change for the students who have been
in my 6th and my colleague's 7th grade LA classroom? After they get used
to expressing themselves and thinking at a deeper level, what happens when
they rejoin the mindless, trivial classroom?
Ellen Berg
Turner Middle School
St. Louis
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
[Note: this got hung up in all the "downtime" with the mainframe.
Tom]
Greetings all:
Let's see if I can talk about some of the points that you've raised and
then let Deborah weigh in with her initial comments.
First, and I do not mean to direct this personally to only Chris Toy, because
this is one of those issues that doesn't seem to go away, but the comment
that Chris was responding to was from the initial review of the book on
the MiddleWeb book list--it's not our words. Certainly, if middle schools
are to survive and survive in their proper format their mission must be,
as we wrote, to provide a balanced (and I would argue, integrated) environment
where the individual is challenged and nurtured academically and provided
the developmental supports to grow and become.
One of the ongoing problems with middle schools (and I include the range
of individuals involved here from college professors like myself all the
way through school personnel and even down to parents and the general public)
is that people portray this age as an either/or--either developmental support
or academic excellence--and it just isn't that way. Young adolescent development
is a complex set of interactions that must be taken as a whole. So, I've
stated my platform there, and again, from what I've read on the listserv,
most of you know that.
The discussion has raised many of the problems we articulated in the article
that have led to arrested development (Note: while there are six elements
that we discuss in the article there are eleven in the actual first chapter
of the book--Deborah and I combined the last and first chapters of the book
to get the article, just for those of you who want to do some additional
reading). One of the items is near and dear to my heart--the preparation
of teachers.
One of the problems with middle schools as was alluded to was the problem
that once initial faculty who got the "transition" training left,
then they were often replaced with individuals who didn't know anything
or little about the concept.
The single biggest problem, in my opinion, is the lack of teacher education
programs--on both the initial undergraduate level as well aas the graaduate
level--to provide the "replacements" for teachers who leave or
retire. We have made a dent, but it's still only a dent, in teacher education.
This is all wrapped up with the issue of state licensure and all of this
is driven by a "market" view of teaching--teachers are interchangeable
and can be moved from one setting/school organization to another whether
or not they were really prepared for that level.
We have that particular situation governing us here in Indiana. As one of
the best middle school principals said to our professional standards board
a number of years ago, if you want a good middle school teacher in this
state you go out and steal them from some other school or corporation. And
given this lack of initially prepared teachers, teachers who have been through
a middle school teacher education program that is based on the middle school
teacher preparation standars, we will never get to the level of overall
school competence that we need.
Which leads into staff development issues, for one. If teachers, who are
educated to teach other developmental levels in other school organizations,
are being hired to teach in fully functioning middle schools, then staff
development dollars are often spent on initial preparation activities. Or,
given the range of staff expertise in some schools--from zero to 100% knowledge--staff
development just turns to other pressing issues with the tacit statement
of "we did teaming years ago." If we are to aleviate this state
of arrested development, then we have to concentrate on these two issues
as part of the mix: who do we haire? how do we continue to examine and re-examine
our roles as educators in this particular school organization?
Which brings me back to the "complex ecology of middle schools"
that we wrote about. I believe, and I've been pondering this very heavily
for the last six years (someone remind me later on this week to tell you
how the idea of "arrested development/reinvention" actually came
about), that we have only begun to understand what the original founders
of the middle school had in mind when they planted the seeds of this concept
over forty years ago.
I think we have grossly understated the complex nature of the concept; that
we have "dumbed down" what middle schools are about and therefore
the responsibilities involved in teaching in one. Surely this is the problem
with creating organizational structures that have no connection to changing
actual practice in the building. Surely this is the problem with hiring
teachers with no understanding of young adolescent development and the appropriate
pedagogies to teach them. Surely this is the problem with our almost total
lack of attention to an appropriate curricular structure for the school.
I have been priviledged to work with and learn from William Alexander and
other founders (Lounsbury, Vars, Toepfer, and Joan Lipsitz--to whom the
book is dedicated) and I have always marveld at the interwomen nature of
the school that they talked about and envisioned. Literally, and I'm being
very reductionist in this, the school organization and programs that were
proposed for this "new shcool in the middle" were there because
they were to change our whole appropriach to teaching this age group. Remember,
this is in the early 60s and the junior high school was and had been a "cesspool"
for students, teachers and parents.
People like my friend Tom Erb have grown blue in the face (Tom already has
a harvest of grey hair in his beard and on his head--like me!) over the
years from trying to explain to teachers that organizing into teams wasn't
really about scheduling--it was about fundamentally changing how we interacted
as educators with our students; it was about how we were supposed to be
able to create stimulating, involving, challenging, educationally rich learning
experiences that appealed to their interests and their questions as well
as being fundamentally improtant to learn.
I see too many teachers that think teams are there in the middle school
as only an alternative to departments without thinking about whey they were
designed that way and the implications of their design.
We are much too simplistic about this concept. Everything is, literally,
involved. And that's what the original research from Robert Felner and associates
and the continuing research from the University of Illinois (the AIMS project)
says. You literally don't get the "bang" from the concept unless
you're doing it all and if you're doing it right--the way the concept was
intended to be done.
Okay, I've gone on for awhile and I need to collect my thoughts some and
re-read what you've sent to see what else I need to respond to. I'll also
let Deborah weigh in with her thoughts after she reads what I've written.
Talk more soon.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lahaskell@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
Hello,
Reading Tom's comments about hiring practices and staff development really
hit home for me. This year my team of five lost three members! The other
teacher and I had worked together only a year. So far this year it's really
been about talking about students in CPT. We haven't really had the time
to work on intergrating the curriculum much. These new people ( two of which
are only one year hires-another long story) are still trying to come to
terms with a new district and curriculum.
I would love to have time to discuss more intergrated units and take the
time to examine student work with my team. However, I can't force them to
read extra articles or do this kind of work. Any ideas out there?
Linda
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Second response to the discussion
Greetings:
Now that my first response has come through (I've gotten a little jumpy
each time the "Postmaster" line comes up lately) let me go to
some other things that people have raised.
I particularly want to go back to what Jack Wallace initially raised and
link that in with Ellen Berg's more recent commentary.
Jack (and all of us--pardon me in talking "to" one of you which
is actually "through you" to others), I think your point is well
taken. We're not going to go through the 60s and 70s again where we were
converting whole schools from junior high schools to middle schools. We're
about done with the year-long inservice classes and the exclusive focus
on the tenents of the middle school. Now we "have them in place"
and that top-down change just isn't going to happen many places anymore.
What will need to happen, in those schools that match up to the "arrested
development" definition, is exactly what you're talking about--a team,
with a strong leader (you), taking a look at what they're doing and saying
"Wait a minute--this just isn't what we should be doing." This
time around I believe that the effort has to be grass roots, maybe even
team by team, to begin with.
[I say this with a sense that Deborah has some things to say about school
principles and school vision but I'll let her speak for herself.]
And by working together we have to be able to demonstrate success if it
is going to have an impact on the other teams at our level or above/below.
One of the really interesting things to watch happen is a really good team
operating well and parents getting wind of it--the pressure put on the administration
and the other teams can be quite significant and it should be.
My best advice to you Jack, and I'm getting more and more leary of giving
advice as I get older, but my best advice to you and your team is to block
off some time on a consistent basis to read and then discuss the significant
literature that will help you find your way through to where you want to
be. Most articles in the Middle School Journal aren't that long (believe
me, all of us in the reinventing theme issue had problems cutting whole
book chapters down to size!) and won't take that long to read. Then spend
some time discussing the issues with an eye to "are we really doing
this?" It sounds like you're already along this road so this probably
what you're doing.
One of the really nice things is that there is so much really good material
out there on just about every subject of middle schools--and a lot of it
is really well written and timely; not just theory, but good practice as
well. Maybe one of the things we should have a dialogue about as the week
unfolds is just what you need to read to go about reinventing--I did an
earlier posting during the teaming discussion about this. We'll have to
come back to it.
But to come back to you and your team mates Jack, continue to lead, especially
with the hard questions and I know they're hard on the individual self as
well as the professional self. I want to stay positive here so I'll wait
until later to talk with you about how you might deal with the individuals
who aren't "walking the walk."
But to Ellen's comments--about what happens when we send out students "on
to others". To a large extent, and this really isn't a middle school
problem only, we have to trust in the work that we do and how that impacts
our students. I have found that the impact a truly good and caring group
of teachers has isn't washed out by a "grammer book/drill and kill"
instructor. Kids have highly refined crap detectors and they know when,
as my daughters taught me, things are real and things aren't. One of my
daughters and I had a dinner conversation about this years ago. I'd commented
that she didn't say anything about her social studies teacher. She said
to me "Remember Mr. A?" I said yes, the one who did all the neat
projects, the debates, the interviewing, etc. She said "He was real."
and then she held up her glass. "Mr. X . . ." and then she put
the glass under the table and said "he's not real. I try to remember
what Mr. A taught me."
But Ellen, and Jack, raise a particular thorny question about other teachers
who aren't necessarily buying into the middle school concept or even other
important things like active learning, student engagement, rigorous instruction,
etc. I don't want to get negative, as I said, so I'll leave this one for
a little later in the week.
Time to send this off and then read more of what you've been writing. Also
time to get up and stretch and disturb the cat in my lap.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
Hi, again, and nice comments Linda--
I'm one who believes that continual professional development is part of
the job. I've watched people in other professions have to stay on top of
what they do and I'm not persuaded that the salary difference is the reason
why we can't. Now before someone says "Whoa, Tom!" I believe this
about higher education as well and probably even more. And no, higher education
isn't any more committed to staying on top of professional development in
a productive manner--at the level that I work at the one's that are already
involved in their own development are the ones that keep surfacing at all
the staff development training (they're also the ones that win the teaching,
research and service awards, but you already knew that).
I think that any team that has team planning time should, as an ongoing
basis, be engaged in their own professional development together. Like I
said, reading an article every two weeks and discussing it for a period
or two should have some positive repercussions--first of all, we're intelligent
people and getting away, for however short a period of time, from grading,
conferences, and other pressing agendas should feed the intellect that we
all have. I think, Linda, that being a leader in this regard is possible
and I don't think that you should approach it from the "read extra
articles" but from another point of view. Maybe start with something
more close to home--starting the year, or something pertinent to their immediate
lives. Then branch out to other issues.
I guess part of what I am saying is trying to create a new culture where
intellectual activity isn't something to be seen as laughable or extra work.
And I feel for you in the revolving door of loosing team members.
Along that line, about hiring, have you gone to your administrator and indicated
that you and the team want to be part of the hiring practice? I tell my
students who are going to look for jobs in a middle school not to take a
job unless they have been interviewed by the team. They understand the admonition
and generally respect it. First of all it gives them an indication of whether
the team is "for real" or not.
Around here the good middle schools have the principal go through the pile
to sort out the candidates and then passes the appropriate ones on to the
team and the team does the interviewing and makes the hiring recommendation.
It seems to work well as a "marriage between equals."
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
From: "Chris Toy" <Chris_Toy@coconetme.org>
MWbooklist@NS.SREB.ORG writes:
>Around here the good middle schools have the principal go through the
pile to sort out the candidates and then passes the appropriate ones on
to the team and the team does the interviewing and makes the hiring recommendation.
It seems to work well as a "marriage between equals.">
Our hiring committees include team members, content peers, a parent, and
students. Everyone except for the students review all applications based
on some agreed upon criteria. Each member identifies their top three or
four candidates, along with notes about others who look promising. The principal
takes everyone's input, hoping there is a reasonable overlap, which there
usually is, and creates the interview list. It works for us.
Chris Toy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ATheins77@aol.com
Subject: [MWbooklist] Being a true middle school
Tom Dickinson writes:
> We are much too simplistic about this concept.
Bingo! I couldn't count the number of times we have talked in my school
about becoming more of a middle school among the new teachers. The older
teachers say we are already are a middle school because we have teams. But,
we still have competitive athletics for only some kids, no advisory program,
and our team planning is usually spent on trivial stuff. What do you do
when someone says, "I/We already do that." How do you convince
someone that they're not really integrating a true middle school concept
into their classrooms? We just keep plugging away and trying to start some
new things, but it is incredibly difficult!
Amy Heinsma
Windsor, CO
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Then Chris Toy wrote:
I think this has a lot to do with our arrested development. Having only
the pieces and titles of programs is not enough. It's the quality and nature
of the interaction among teachers and students that makes a school effective.
Some of our more experienced teachers learned about the pieces of middle
level education thinking they knew all there was to know. This may be the
fault of the way professional development happens in schools. (Take any
number of reforms or programs, such as the unwhole implementation of whole
language.)
To be fair, I think the research and knowledge base for middle level and
effective teaching practices is significantly more sophisticated than it
was 10 or 15 years ago when many of our veteran teachers received their
professional development or training. I'm pretty sure there were no undergraduate
middle level courses for them. There still aren't any in Maine. It's still
all elementary or secondary.
Chris Toy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Hayes Mizell" <HMizell@msn.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] 'REINVENTING' CHAT
I wonder if the issue is not whether anything is wrong with the middle school
concept, but whether rank-and-file middle level educators (and their bosses!)
have the interest, will and capacity to do what it takes to translate the
concept into practices that improve outcomes for students. In other words,
bringing the middle school concept to fruition in ways that demonstrably
enhance student development and achievement seems to be an unending struggle
that crashes on the rocks of what is REALLY important to the average middle
level educator (getting through the day, order, cari ng about the kids).
Certainly there are wonderful examples of where a principal and a faculty
truly "get it" and are more or less on the same page in working
together to translate the middle school CONCEPT into middle school PRACTICE.
But this is too often the exception rather than the rule. In many places,
as Tom says, there are attempts to implement the structures and processes
of what people understand to be the middle school concept, but these efforts
seem to falter when it is necessary to move beyond the mechanics to higher
order practice.
Then there is the utilitarian dimension of the middle school concept. Given
the standards and accountability pressures that administrators and faculties
now face, why should they believe that the middle school concept will help
them? [Please, can we just drop the word "concept"? Maybe that
is part of the problem. It remains a concept so long as we keep using the
word, thereby suggesting that is the goal we are seeking. It always s eems
so theoretical and ethereal.] Of course, IT CAN help them, but the middle
school community has done a terrible job of making the case and providing
the evidence.
Even though the about-to-be-enacted reauthorization of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act will establish a 12-year target for closing the
achievement gap between minority and non-minority students by the end of
the eighth grade, will educators rise up and say, " I know, let's do
middle schools!" I doubt it. Middle schools are not seen as a practical
solution to what is now troubling people. That means not only student achievement,
but student development.
How do we mobilize educators to understand and embrace and WORK towards
a new vision and construct that combines what the middle school movement
has learned from 30 years of with the new imperative to educate all children
well?
And, by the way, is it necessary or useful to hold onto all the elements
of traditional middle schools? Are they all equally workable and require
equal effort to implement? Do some yield better results than others when
they are implemented effectively and consistently? Given the resource and
time pressures on educators, where should they put their greatest effort
to achieve the results we say we want?
Hayes Mizell
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Bambino" <dbambino@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
Tom wrote:
"I'm one who believes that continual professional development is part
of the job."
I agree with Tom about ongoing professional development and the introduction
of other points of view through articles etc. At my school, we used Critical
Friends Groups to promote reflective practice and collaboration. Our progress
was uneven, but I think it's definitely the way to go. We used protocols
to examine student work together and began to engage in peer observations.
An added bonus was the use of the same tools in our classrooms with our
kids.
I'm interested in peoples' experiences about hiring, we are just beginning
to approach staff hiring decisions in our schools. We have had site selection
of principals for some time.
Deb Bambino
Philadelphia Public Schools
National School Reform Faculty
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eileen Bendixsen <eb@passporttoknowledge.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
I apologize in being way behind in this discussion, but I'm reading at a
rapid speed tonight and will post additional comments. First I wanted to
post the experiences of changing to a middle school in our district which
in some ways are probably unique, but have also contributed to our being
in arrested development.
I agree that there is nothing wrong with the middle school concept. Over
the past year plus I have learned a great deal about what a middle school
really is from the list, by attending NMSA this November and by trying to
spend every spare minute reading as much as I can about the philosophy and
how to teach middle school students.
Our district formed two small middle schools in 1983. At that time they
were called middle schools because if they were named junior highs it would
require teachers certified in their subject area and they would only teach
one subject. Instead they chose elementary teachers to make up the staff
of the middle school. I was not in the district at the time, but this is
still talked about in our district because many of the teachers were chosen
after requesting to not be placed in the middle school.
Five years ago we spent a year looking into middle schools and almost every
teacher in both middle schools was sent to observe a middle school in the
area and to sit in on a team meeting. The following year we were placed
into teams in most cases based on the grade level we wanted to teach. We
were given a team planning time every day and also had the same lunch and
individual planning time. We had three professional development workshops
on teaming by someone who presented ideas even beyond what is part the middle
school concept and most of what he stressed needed to be done we were never
going to be able to accomplish.
After four years of some form of teaming--we still have not added advisories
and the subject has never been mentioned in our district--we have this year
after a 7.5 million dollar bond issue to restructure the district--5 million
to expand the other middle school--combined the two middle schools (6-8)
into one 7/8 middle school. Unfortunately we are still--four months later--trying
to blend from two schools into one.
The current staff is comprised of mostly staff from the other school (about
3/4) along with their principal. This has made it very difficult for the
teachers from our former building to get any of the very successful things
that we did which were very pro student to be incorporated into what we
do. It has been a very difficult time for us to even be really excepted
beyond the friendly hello and the inclusion in conversation. They are still
comparing and asking if students were from "the other building".
I wonder if one of the main reasons so many districts are in arrested development
is not only money to add the common team period and go that step further
to add advisories, but also that you really need a top administration and
a building principal as well as a Board of Education that really understands
the middle school concept and buys into it. Have they taken the time to
read some of the NMSA publications so that they truely understand what the
middle school concept is?
The only thing we were given when we were making the change was "This
We Believe" and that was by placing a couple of copies in the teacher's
room. I'm the only teacher in our building that attends the national conventions.
I've mentioned a number of the things that were brought up in Turning Points
in our team meeting and it is obvious that none of them had heard of it
or read it. Out of the 8 team members 5 of them are 30 or under and thus
should have had the middle school background as part of their certification.
It is obvious that they did not receive this. Also 3 of those 5 taught 6th
grade last year and really would have preferred to stay there, but moved
to 7th to remain in the building with the building principal.
I agree we do need to "reinvent" our middle schools in accordance
with what the original founders of this movement articulated while deepening
our understanding of the concept. It is definitely worth the effort, time
and money as you can see from the results at the schools where this is being
implemented.
Eileen Bendixsen
Hazlet Middle School
Hazlet, NJ
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Being a true middle school
I think we've got something here and I think it goes to the discussion that
Anne and Marsha touched on about the ecology. (And Chris is on target about
the sophistication of the current research.)
Part of what I meant about being too simplistic about the concept, and this
is the part about the ecology and other points we were trying to make, is
that the middle school concept was something new.
Try that on for size for a moment (you may have to put yourself back to
1960 in a historical sense here). New. We had not attempted to do this before.
Sure, the junior high school was the "first birth" of a school
for young adolescents but there were a ton of other social reasons pushing
for a separate school in the middle (and for you history buffs who want
to read this there are lots of good historical reviews out there).
The middle school concept was new, however. And it was also different. New.
Different.
But not many schools got the next point, that it was unlike anything we
had ever seen before--here's the ecological point: It was a school concept
so interwoven that yes, you did have to do everything and everything together
to make it work.
There's a marvelous book out there, about Indiana and the Lilly Endowment's
Middle Grades Improvement Program (MGIP) that is pertinent here. The citation
follows--
Ames, N.L. & Miller, E. (1994). Changing middle schools:
How to make schools work for young adolescents. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Nancy Ames and Ed Miller wrote a wonderful book and the pertinent chapter
here is one about two principals, who I know and have worked with named
Jeff Swenson and Wally Bourke--the two best principals I have ever seen
in middle school outside of Wilma Parrish at Western Middle School in Alamance
County, N.C.--and how they made the transition to middle school.
The chapter is titled along the line "A Story of Two Principals",
the book is at work so I'm not sure about the title. What Jeff and then
Wally (they were principal/assistant and then Wally succeeded Jeff when
he moved to another district) did during the transition was to do everything
all at the same time--no incremental stage model; everything.
They knew that everything affected everything and had to happen that way;
yes, it was hard (the book talks about the transition at Decatur Middle
School in some detail) and not everyone made it through the transition.
But they didn't start down the road putting one piece in but neglecting
next year to put in another and integrate them together.
My point is that this concept is too different to do in a linear process--and
that's the problem with what we've done up to this point in many schools.
It's too interwoven together. And like an ecology, everything works together
with complex interactions, reactions, cause and effect.
Anne wrote:
<My question - does this mean that success depends on simultaneous implementation
of all middle school program components? I rather hope not, as that would
"doom" schools who begin with the pieces they are able to implement
and struggle to add remaining components as allowed.>
To get to your point Anne, yes and no (sounds like a college professor,
right?). The yes is that success does depend on implementation of all the
program components together--if not simultaneously like Jeff and Wally,
then pretty quickly. The point is that you've got to get them all in and
working together.
I don't want to doom schools by saying that they've got to begin implementation
all at once (that takes a committed staff and a knowledgeable, strong, committed
leader). But a staff (or administration) can't decide somewhere down the
road that "we've got enough" and leave out any of the fundamental
elements. Or worse, put the individual pieces in and not articulate them
together.
Take teams for example. Again, it's not about scheduling. It's about everything--how
I relate to students, to my team peers, advisory, communication with parents,
my curriculum and its relationship to my team mates' curriculum, how I focus
on individual student needs, how I work with colleagues to integrate a range
of crossover skills like reading and writing, how I look at instruction
and my use of time--that's what teams are supposed to do: change how we
work.
But too many people in middle schools seem to think that it's only about
the structure, the form. If this is a real ecology of schooling as I've
argued and as the founders of the movement intended then we need to spend
much more time thinking about how all of the pieces interact--and I see
that every now and again on one particular team but I don't see that generally
across the board in a school or schools.
That's the point. This is a new and different concept.
Marsha said some provocative things that I've been thinking about and I
need to think about even more:
<Interdependence doesn't mean that everything's the same. When it works
well, it means that there is a balance of individual components. And when
things are out of balance, the organism works to bring those out-of-bound
pieces into balance. That self-correcting mechanism is what I think we're
missing. I'll have to think about whether or not it's because we're too
busy, too overwhelmed, or too worried about the implications of corrections.
In my case, maybe I just got too self-absorbed into content and forgot to
stay on top of the Big Picture and the research that supported the notion
of excellence through that Big Picture. I really don't know. This article
and discussion have me really thinking about what's so different than when
I arrived in MS in the early 90s?>
I think, Marsha, that the self-correcting mechanism that's missing is at
the college level. Without the influx of very focused training on the part
of new hires then any imbalance at the school site will continue out of
balance and even more so. There is nothing like an influx of new teachers
educated in the middle school concept to ask hard questions, to put things
into practice, to stir the mix. I saw this in the two states--North Carolina
and Georgia--where they have both the licensure patterns and the teacher
education programs (on the graduate and undergraduate levels and in Georgia
at the University of Georgia they even have a freestanding Doctorate in
Middle School!).
The schools in this state have had a continuing influx of new teachers who
have been specifically trained in very good programs all across both states.
They come in expecting to do what they were educated to do. And in both
states there are graduate programs--masters and specialists programs galore--where
teachers continue their education in a focused manner, building on what
they already know and can do. And for experienced teachers who may not have
had the undergraduate training, well there are programs for them to initiate
their learning about middle schools.
I think this is the self-correcting mechanism (I'm so glad you brought this
up--now my friend and co-author Ken McEwin and I have another concept to
help hang our arguments for separate and distinct middle school programs
on--thank you!)--teacher education. How we get it is a problem that may
be, in some states, insurmountable.
I think another self-correcting mechanism is also in your response--the
Big Picture. It's like a lot of marriages that I've seen--two people committed
to one another who go along leading their lives, going about their daily
work, but over time forgetting to pay real attention to each other until
one day they wake up in bed together and they are two strangers to each
other.
To make any complex relationship work everyone involved in it has to stop
and pay attention to the Big Picture every now and then. Deborah would argue
that that position should be performed by a knowledgeable principal (she's
finishing her own grading so hopefully I can get her to log on with her
comments soon). But if not a knowledgeable principal then someone on the
staff.
I've found that when I've been called in from the outside to do this that
I meet with polite acceptance and then the passive resistance comes to the
fore. I've just about stopped doing the Big Picture with middle school faculties
and I tell people who call me to do it themselves--they live there and they
can follow up much more fully than I can.
So Marsha, I think the two points of the missing self-correcting mechanism
are teacher education and regular revisiting the Big Picture (and then fixing
what may be awry).
And it's easy to see why the Big Picture would slip off the radar scope--teachers
and schools have gotten so battered and bruised lately with one cintinuing
wave of demands after another without the support or climate to accomplish
it in--it's very easy to understand how to slip into arrested development
while still working very hard at what are often unavoidable tasks.
But the bottom line is that in the end we don't get hurt, the innocent ones
do.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Bambino" <dbambino@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Being a true middle school
Amy wrote:
<"What do you do when someone says, "I/We already do that."
How do you convince someone that they're not really integrating a true middle
school concept into their classrooms?">
I'm working with a school that is committed to the principles of the Coalition
of Essential Schools. On Thursday I'll be taking a collaborative walk with
the 5-6 team to "take stock" of their progress around the principle
of "student as worker, teacher as coach." Maybe when people say
or think they're already doing something, you can try a similar tack, talk
about what evidence for the practice looks like, sounds like etc. and then
go out in search of evidence/data.20
We hope to find some things that are working, but expect we'll also get
clarity on the weak spots.
Maybe some of the veteran teachers are resisting because they don't feel
the positive aspects are getting honored. I know I've sometimes been guilty
of plowing ahead without enough consideration of previous developments.
There's a good article on the Journal of Staff development site called,
" Shh, the dragon is sleeping and its name is resistance."
You can read it at:
http://www.nsdc.org/library/jsd/janas193.html
(JSD, Spring 1998)
Good luck,
Deb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Bambino" <dbambino@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] 'REINVENTING' CHAT
Hayes Mizell wrote:
"Then there is the utilitarian dimension of the middle school concept.
Given the standards and accountability pressures that administrators and
faculties now face, why should they believe that the middle school concept
will help them?"
I'm very concerned with a move away from middle schools back to K-8's in
Phila. The emphasis is on contol and safety, and away from any real analysis
of the adolescent learner. Instead of building understanding, relationships
and new structures, the push is for a retreat, zero tolerance and clamping
down on kids.
I see this approach as going hand in glove with high stakes testing and
thenarrowing of the curriculum that is on the rise. Are folks experiencing
these developments in other areas of the country?
The specter of privatization and Edison looms large here and I am not optimistic
about their "support" of middle schoolers...
Deb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Bambino" <dbambino@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
Eileen wrote: "...many of the teachers were chosen after requesting
to not be placed in the middle school."
Your comment could be made about our staffing practices in Phila. Far too
many middle gtades' classrooms are being taught by teachers who are dying
to get out of the middle.
I trained to be a kindergarten teacher and landed in seventh grade! We need
better preparation, as Tom said, but we also need to break down the misinformation
about our kids, the misinformation breeds fear and misunderstanding of adolescents
and isolates our kids. Once I got to know my students, I was hooked, but
my anxiety level was over the top, the summer before I began teaching.
Deb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eileen Bendixsen <eb@passporttoknowledge.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
Deb:
I agree with you 100%, but I'm sure there isn't one of us who has not been
to at least one middle school professional development session where the
beginning of the session starts with a comment about the fact that we are
nuts to be teaching this age group. I heard it a couple of times at NMSA
alone. It was interesting that at one of the sessions one teacher did address
the comment, but whenever the session is started in that manner we all laugh
and agree. If we want to break down the isolation it has to begin with all
of us.
I too wanted to become a primary teacher. In fact my original certificate
was from NY as N-6. I moved to NJ right after college and was given permanent
K-8 certification without taking a single course.
BTW I guess I should say that this was in 1973 before the state tests etc.
for certification. I fell into the middle school because they needed substitutes
to work at that grade level and I wanted to work. Even after six months
I was still asking to be moved down to the lower grades. Fortunately the
substitute caller did not listen and after 4 1/2 years of subbing I was
hired as a 7th and 8th grade science teacher.
I spent last year fighting to remain in the middle school--my original assignment
after the restructuring was a move to 5th and 6th grade science. The assist.
superintendent finally forced the middle school principal to agree to my
staying in the middle school.
Eileen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ellen Berg <ellen@accessus.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
> >I trained to be a kindergarten teacher and landed in seventh grade!
We need better preparation, as Tom said, but we also need to break down
the misinformation about our kids, the misinformation breeds fear and misunderstanding
of adolescents and isolates our kids.>>
I agree, but as Eileen said, our kiddos are a very special breed.
Unfortunately, most prospective teachers are asked whether they want to
teach high school or elementary, and the middle school is neglected entirely.
What I would like to see in *all* teacher education programs is some quality
times for all preservice teachers at all levels. I wanted most to teach
Senior Honors Literature & Composition (caps intended!), and nothing
but a last minute curiosity to do my student teaching at the middle level
helped me find my true calling.
Yes, middle schoolers are unique bunch, but they are definitely not for
everybody, just like elementary or high school is not for everyone. I think
we need to do a better job of promoting ourselves and educating prospective
teachers about their choices. Instead of being stuck in the middle, we need
teachers who elect to serve this very special population.
Ellen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jack Wallace <wallacej@blazenetme.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Being a true middle school
>>I couldn't count the number of times we have talked in my school
about becoming more of a middle school among the new teachers. The older
teachers say we are already are a middle school because we have teams>>
This is interesting because our team (8th grade) is made up of five core
teachers (four of whom are in their fifties and a team leader who is in
her thirties), and three "diversified studies" teachers all of
whom are in their forties.
The one with the least information about middle schools is the team leader,
but she is very open to change. What is more important in my view is the
background of the teacher. Three of us in the core area are former elementary
teachers and a couple of us taught in the sixth grade which is still the
premiere team concept functioning unit. We experienced true teams (no student
off team, scheduling of the school day the way we wanted it, effective and
efficient team planning meetings), and when we arrived in 8th grade, we
were content area teachers. None of those three characteristics just mentioned
were evident, nor were they sought after.
The certification issue in Maine in seventh and eighth grade is a major
one. There are teachers who were math majors in college, want to teach just
math and have a passion for math. (Substitute any core area). Should they
be expected to leave their area? Or can we manage to integrate them into
the team?
Most of our staff is open to interdisciplinary instruction and can bring
something to the table when planning these projects. For example, if we
have 12 "divisions" of 23 students each, couldn't we devise teams
of 3, 4 and 5 members (sounds like a right triangle, doesn't it?) and utilize
each other's strengths? The team of three could be made up of teachers who
have dual certification (K-8 and 7-12) or just K-8. This would allow us
to teach multiple subjects as they do in sixth grade. The team of five would
be made up of mostly 7-12 certified teachers, but they could still integrate.
The team of four would be a hybrid. That's where I get lost in the details.
I mentioned above about the background of the teacher in terms of certification
and teaching experience. But it is also important in life-long learning.
We are curious people who enjoy discussing educational and personal and
social and moral issues. We are open to change, but fortunately, being of
advanced age, we have some experience to separate the wheat and the chaff.
'Hmmm, is this a significant change, or is this just fluff?"
We also enjoy each other's company. Stories of children and grandchildren
pepper the 20 minute lunch time. The personal connection is so very important,
and having taught in our boxes for so long, it's fun to actually connect
with each other.
Sorry to ramble, but this stuff is interesting!
Jack Wallace
Eighth Grade Social Studies Teacher
Brunswick Junior High School
Brunswick, ME
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eileen Bendixsen <eb@passporttoknowledge.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Being a true middle school
I don't mean this as an argument against what Tom is saying about implementing
the whole concept at once, but I believe in many cases we are even simply
struggling with taking those first couple of steps off home plate. We had
our team period handed to us on a silver platter. My first year of teaming
we had a very difficult group of students. Although it was a very difficult
year for all of us it truly bonded us as a team.
Unfortunately I was asked to cross-team two years later and landed on a
team that had many problems, but again last year we had another rough group
of students and it did once again force us to come together as a team.
This year I'm on the third team I've been on. I'd be embarrassed to tell
you how we spend most of the time during teaming. Most of it has nothing
to do with school, students or curriculum. The "problem" students
are discussed as a venting session only and it was made obvious to me from
the first day that things like setting up action plans etc. was not going
to happen.
There is no teacher/student connection or interest in the student centered
philosophy of the middle school. We are currently putting together an interdisciplinary
unit only because it is required. We just started writing the objectives
today and they plan to implement right after vacation so that they can get
it over with.
The one middle school idea that was brought up with the principal was flexible
scheduling for the half days. It was shot down so quickly (He didn't want
to have to remember the schedules for four different teams. We had explained
that we would work out the schedule.) that I can tell you while this principal
is in the building there is no chance that we can do anything with the schedule.
The team members themselves have never bought into the concept. In fact
during a discussion at lunch one day several team members mentioned they
thought it was a waste of time and that they would rather teach six periods
than have the teaming period. We still have many of the senior staff that
would like to see us go back to the K-8 buildings. We also fill up teaching
positions in the middle school with high school staff that causes "problems"
in the high school and are thus banished to the middle school.
How do you get a district to accept the complete philosophy and implement
it all at once when neither administration nor staff is willing to take
that first step?
Eileen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shighley@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] schools and grade configuration
Deb's comment about reverting to K-8 schools in Philadelphia has me wondering.
Can not the middle school ecology be successfully implemented in a K-8 school?
Am I dreaming, or have I read that there is some research supporting K-8
schools? The current trend in the area where I live is to separate even
more, to have 5-6 schools and 7-8 schools. No school district has said that
this plan is supported by any type of research; it always seems to be a
way to work with overcrowding in elementary and middle schools.
Susie Highley
Creston Middle School
Indianapolis, IN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bivey@k12s.phast.umass.edu (Bill Ivey)
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] First "Reinventing" discussion question
Hi!
Whew! You all are amazing! I'm almost caught up (and over half done making
crepes for the 8th grade trip...) So, organizing my thoughts around the
organizational snippets used by Marsha and Jack...
>a. there is nothing wrong with the middle school concept;
I absolutely agree, though I also agree with the notion expressed here that
the word "concept" may be an unwitting liability - it sounds untested
and unformed. I also think that there aren't nearly enough schools which
truly uphold middle school ideals, whether it's a lack of training, a lack
of desire, or a perception of lack of time (put me, sorry to say, in that
third group - for now, anyway).
>b. most middle schools are in some stage of "arrested development;"
Looking at the upper school at Pine Cobble and thinking back to conversations
we've had over the past year on Middleweb, I would say it's hard to argue
with that. I think the above stated problems go to why. For these five criteria
Marsha mentioned, here's how Pine Cobble stacks up...
>Teachers organized into teams that meet
There are only 10-15 kids in each grade at Pine Cobble, so our middel level
faculty is only 13 people (including those specialists who also teach in
the lower school). Nonetheless, I suppose we could create smaller teams
if we wanted to. The 13 of us meet once a week and spend the bulk of meeting
time discussing various students and how we can work together to help them.
We do work well together, and in a sense would be diminished if we only
had half the expertise on any given team.
>Unification between core and exploratory teachers
At a curricular level, this isn't happening at all at Pine Cobble. The closest
we've had to co-curricular is when we had one person teaching 6th and 8th
grade English and History who integrated his own curricula quite effectively
- perhaps through regular meetings with himself. I'd love to see this though.
I will say we do support each other.
>Advisory programs
Pine Cobble does this well, as we have 30-60 minutes every Wednesday afternoon
for advisor group "work jobs" (!!!) and time to talk, play, study,
etc., and 30 minutes every Friday for an advisor group lunch. Of course,
some advisors do more with the time than others, which may in part be a
matter of training???, but at least the time is there.
>Competitive athletics for all
Do we ever have this! With only 51 kids in grades 6-9, everyone is required
to be on a team during fall and spring seasons, and the varsity boys' soccer
team is undeafeated since 1999. We go skiing (downhill or cross country)
in the winter.
>Curriculum
My feeling is that Pine Cobble's curriculum is relatively responsive to
the needs of any individual group of kids and that we are good about imposing
rigor - certainly our kids tend to be about two years ahead of their peers
in the local public schools when they graduated, which has to mean something
even when you consider we can select our population.
Our methods do tend to be varied and suitable for different learning styles.
I do sometimes think we overbalance toward the traditional and practical,
and that a little more knowledge of early adolescent development (intellectual,
social, perhaps even physical) would be good.
>c. to alleviate this problem we need to "reinvent" middle
schools in accordance with what the original founders of this movement articulated
while deepening our understanding of the concept.
Well... I always hate to stick dogmatically to any one vision, and several
people on this list have mentioned how much we've learned about young adolescents
over the past 10-15 years, but the core ideas are certainly solid.
Tom mentioned that one thing we can do over these next few days is delineate
what might be most useful to read. I would totallly support that notion.
Chris said: "It's the quality and nature of the interaction among teachers
and students that makes a school effective." which goes along with
a conversation he and I are having on the main list. I do think that one's
background in early adolescent psychology can drastically affect the quality
of what we do as well as the activities we select to do (the "nature
of the interaction"), and that there are too many people in middle
school education who lack adequate training.
Actually, I should know, because I'm one of them. (Thanks to MiddleWeb,
I'm catching up fast, though!).
Those are my rather choppy and belated two cents.
Take care,
Bill Ivey
Pine Cobble School
Williamstown, MA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then John Norton wrote:
Hayes Mizell wrote:
<Certainly there are wonderful examples of where a principal and a faculty
truly "get it" and are more or less on the same page in working
together to translate the middle school CONCEPT into middle school PRACTICE.
But this is too often the exception rather than the rule. In many places,
as Tom says, there are attempts to implement the structures and processes
of what people understand to be the middle school concept, but these efforts
seem to falter when it is necessary to move beyond the mechanics to higher
order practice.>
I think this is really a core issue across the USA (and elsewhere, I expect!).
I know that Hayes has been in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of middle schools
in many states. I've probably been in several hundred myself. As we go through
these schools, interviewing teachers and principals and students, we find
this core issue over and over again. They "do" middle school.
It says "Middle School" over the door, doesn't it?
An analogy might be this: a master chef gives you his/her recipe for a fabulous
dish you just ate at his/her five-star restaurant. You go home, pull out
the recipe, locate all the "ingredients," and attempt to cook
the meal. But you lack the master chef's skills, knowledge, and considerable
experience. And no one with those skills, knowledge and experience is there
to lead and guide you. The Michelin Guide will not be dropping by to rate
your efforts. Does the dish taste the same? Very doubtful. But you can surely
put a sign up in your kitchen, saying "Five-star recipe served here."
Or, we could go with the emperor who had no clothes... I like that one.
I like the part where if everybody just *believed* it was so -- it was so.
For a MiddleWeb diary entry exactly on this point, read Ellen's report (posted
yesterday) about her challenge of her principal and school around the issue
of *implementation* of the school improvement plan.
http://www.middleweb.com/mw/msdiaries/01-02wklydiaries/EB16.html
john
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Norton wrote:
OK, we've heard that many middle schools are stalled -- "arrested"
in their development. Tom may want to tell us more about what he and Deborah
had in mind when they used that expression.
But here's my question: Is there anyone on the List who can offer examples
of either:
(1) How a school's evolution toward a fully realized middle school model
has been stymied; OR
(2) How a school (its faculty and administrators) have broken through the
barrier and are achieving the vision of a middle school that meets all students'
needs -- achievement, development, and equity?
Take your pick...
John
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle" <mpedigo@Barren.k12.ky.us>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] Reinventing - - - How?
Hi everyone, I'm joining a bit late. As a former middle school principal
and one that believes with all my heart that all components working together
in middle schools work for children at that level, I understand your question
below, Anne.
"My question - does this mean that success depends on simultaneous
implementation of all middle school program components? I rather hope not,
as that would "doom" schools who begin with the pieces they are
able to implement and struggle to add remaining components as allowed."
Anne, I do understand the reality behind what you are saying; however, I
bemoan the fact that so many schools and districts have put the name of
middle school on their letterheads and on their signs, organized in teams,
and called themselves a middle school. They have not really begun to scratch
the surface of what must happen to support high student achievement in a
community of learners. This, in return, gives all middle schools a worse
name because they have not implemented the philosophy and they are in with
us!
While it may be hard to implement, we must work to expect all tenets of
Turning Points 2000, all tenets of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle
Grades Reform's work around being academically excellent, socially equitable
and developmentally responsive, to be infused into the daily joy of middle
schools, for middle school children. There has to be a balance among all
these, and all these serve middle school children.
Here's a secret, though, if one reads any of Turning Points 2000 or any
of the National Forum's work, they will find that it is truly sound, good
education practice, PreK - postsecondary; the developmental stages simply
change.
For more information on the National Forum's work, check out their website
at http://www.schoolstowatch.org
.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts....
Michelle Pedigo
Barren County Schools
Glasgow, KY
Editor's Note: Michelle was selected by the National Association of Secondary
School Principals as the 2000 Middle Level Principal of the Year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then Michelle Pedigo wrote:
Hayes Mizell wrote:
"Then there is the utilitarian dimension of the middle school concept.
Given the standards and accountability pressures that administrators and
faculties now face, why should they believe that the middle school concept
will help them?"
If implemented correctly, around the balance of academic rigor, developmentally
responsiveness, and social equity, the middle school concept will help them
accomplish student achievement, on any state assessment. The big "if"
is when it is implemented correctly.
Michelle
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then Michelle Pedigo wrote:
Tom wrote:
"I'm one who believes that continual professional development is part
of the job."
I so much agree, especially job-embedded professional development with an
on-site facilitator that ensures follow-up on the professional development
in the classroom.
Michelle
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Selby replied to John's question/prompt:
I think one area that has stymied progress toward a full realization of
the middle school model is the lack of training for new teachers about what
a middle school is really about. In California, the student teachers are
not required to have any formal studies on the middle level, for it focuses
all of the attention to secondary as a whole.
Many new teachers come in to a middle school environment with an idea that
is just like a high school, but the kids are smaller. I think we are doing
a diservice to these teachers by not preparing them for the middle level.
Cal State San Marcos in San Diego has a strong middle level program that
truly prepares the student teachers for the middle school. I think if more
educators were cognizant of the ideals of the middle level, we would not
find ourselves as stalled.
Rick
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom returned from his college paperwork and made up for lost time!
Hello everyone:
I'm back--grades all turned in, student teacher summative assessments graded,
grant budget totalled out and even some shopping done!
Given John's question, I'd like door number two--trying to tell positive
stories on this Tuesday in December.
>(2) How a school (its faculty and administrators) have broken through
>the barrier and are achieving the vision of a middle school that >meets
all students' needs -- achievement, development, and equity?
When I taught at Georgia Southern College (now University) I worked with
a small, rural middle school in Georgia that was making the transition to
middle school from a semi-junior high school/semi-nondescript school model.
Part of the transition was having me come up and teach a semester-long introductory
course on middle schools. Now for those of you that know the Georgia middle
school story you'll know that the state put money around the transition
with supplemental funds for schools that implemented the middle school concept
(sorry Hayes, I'm still captive of my own language but I'm thinking hard
about what you wrote last night)--things like teaming, flexible block schedules,
advisories.
But while that is important to the larger background, I want to comment
on what the school and the district did to make the transition. There were
a number of very specific things:
The district paid for the enrollment of all the faculty and administration
in the course (since the district had officially embraced moving toward
middle school--one of the requirements for the state was that to be eligible
for the additional money then something like 60% of the faculty had to have
a middle school license or endorsement). They required it of the entire
staff, but they paid for it--three hours graduate credit good for renewal
of your license or work on an advanced degree. They also paid for everyone's
books--nothing to share, everyone got all of the books and we used quite
a few.
When there was an objection that people would miss supper the principal,
who I'll get to later told the staff that he'd feed them. Out of his budget.
It wasn't 5-star cooking (the cafeteria staff did it) but it was good and
one of the unintended results was that we didn't "leave" for dinner
when it came time, we just went together and kept talking, getting to know
each other more, getting the social aspect further down the road. And let's
face it--teachers, at any level love to eat (I think it's a result of the
no-time-for-lunch situation at schools).
Then when someone objected about the need for daycare the principal went
to the high school, just a little down the road, and asked the Key Club,
which is a service club, if they could set up a homework helper and a daycare/babysitting
situation. Since service clubs are always on the lookout for meaningful
opportunities they said yes and while we had class in the library they set
up a series of rooms for homework for older kids and a daycare setup for
the younger ones. One teacher, whose husband taught at the high school,
confessed that their child did better in math that semester with the homework
help every Monday night than they had ever done before.
Oh, yeah--Monday night. When the faculty heard that the class was on Tuesday
they wanted it taught on Monday since they figured they had more energy
then so the principal called my chair at GSU and we changed the night (which
wasn't a big deal at all for me).
So by the time the class started, and I didn't know all about this until
later, the principal had responded to (blunted) any problem, question or
concern.
So there we were, the entire faculty (maybe 35 teachers and all of the support
staff--librarian and counselor), the principal and assistant principal.
But that wasn't all--the district curriculum director was there as was a
school board member who had advocated for the change. And then get this--two
parents of middle school kids that the principal had recruited. And everyone--and
I mean everyone--was there every night.
The principal, who had been reading heavily for the last three years about
middle schools and had been taking middle school courses from the University
of Georgia, said something rather profound that first night.
After welcoming everyone and acknowledging the contribution of everyone
there he said this to the faculty (I paraphrase from the exact but the idea
is here): "We are moving to middle schools. That decision has been
made by the school board. We are going to study what we need to do and then
we're going to implement it. You each have a decision to make and that's
whether you want to be here in this middle school. You don't have to make
up your mind tonight or next week or even the next. Take your time. Ask
hard questions. Challenge the materials and the instructor. But make sure
you understand this: we are going to be a middle school. If this is the
place for you,then good; you will be welcome here. But if it's not, then
you need to start thinking about where you'd like to be, because you and
the school and the children don't need to be unhappy."
It got really quiet and he looked at everyone for a very long while and
then he said to me to begin.
We had a wonderful class--lots of "real" assignments, inventories,
case studies, reading research, role playing--the kind of active stuff that
made the hours go by. And each time when we got to a critical point the
principal would stand up and ask "How are we going to decide this?"
The staff didn't know it then but he was creating a shared governance model
with them as we went through the course. And it was interesting, watching
it unfold. When we had about finished with the segment on teams he asked
"How do we decide who's on a team?" The faculty wanted him to
decide and he said no, if I decide then you'll blame me when things go wrong.
He turned it back to them and we ended up making it a four week assignment
for the entire staff (the librarian was critical at this stage to help coordinate
everything but then she'd been coordinating everything at that school for
a long time--aren't they the most valuable people!).
We had them talk to every other member of the staff--and given the small
number it was amazing who didn't know who; we had them do inventories; we
had them post "Job Wanted" advertisements where they described
themselves as teachers and potential team members (their assets and needs)
as well as their image of what they wanted from team members; we had them
role play conflict situations; and I brought in a fully functioning team
from where I worked that had been together as a team for four years and
they described the ups and downs of getting to where they were--that was
a really tough night for everyone; it's not easy to share failures and mis-starts
before others.
Anyway, we proceeded along this line the whole semester. From the time I
got out of the state car (I gradually learned to get there early and then
earlier) I was beseiged with questions and questions and more questions.
They started out as "But what if . . ." and "Now I don't
know if I believe . . ." but as the semester progressed they became
"If we were to implement this model, how would we go about . . ."
and "I'm convinced of the need for this, do you have more for me to
read about it or where can I go to see it up close . . ."
We went to the state middle school conference--registration was very cheap
and it was for one day and it was close--but everyone went and they had
an eye-opening time meeting people who were happy in a middle school environment.
They also made friends and contacts.
I could go on but I think I'll stop here and see if I can point to what
happened with this one rural school (and before you ask, no, they're not
arrested in their development--they are a fully functioning middle schools
with a stable staff, new hires over the year with middle school degrees
and knowledge, and yes, the principal is still there, thank you very much):
First of all, they had buyin from top down and that buyin was overt and
visible--parents, school board members, central office administrators--as
well as from the principal.
Second, they had a visionary leader in a principal. Someone who didn't go
into this transition lightly at all; who'd done his homework, read what
he could, studied with good people on the subject. And he had a vision that
he slowly shared with the staff in a natural way.
Third, the visionary leader had standards. Not arbitrary ones but meaningful
ones. And part of those standards was in not letting people who didn't want
to be there poison the transition and the development of the school. No
one, to use one of my phrases, was going to be a stumbling block in his
school; everyone was invited to be a stepping stone to the next level. No,
not all the staff that took the course stayed and the principal helped find
them places in the system where they could be happy and make a difference.
But the ones that did stay wanted to be there and they'd proved that throughout
the semester.
Fourth, and this is most critical, they used the knowledge base of middle
schools to direct them in what they did. They read and implemented; they
debated things on the merits of their situation and circumstances and their
kids but they didn't out-of-hand dismiss good research or good practice.
I think some of this goes back to our discussion last night on the "self-regulating"
feature of an ecology. Here I think the self-regulator was the principal.
Time to let the cats back in--sometimes I wonder who is keeping who.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Binkley joined the conversation:
I'm entering the discussion to offer a couple of observations--thanks for
the opportunity for dialogue on an important issue! First, we need to be
careful of "all or nothing" and "one or the other" kind
of thinking....in other words, the extremes. Very few things are all bad
or all good. Second, while I prefer a middle grades school that has all
the components of the middle school philosophy in place, I know of some
wonderful middle grade schools NOT called middle schools......what goes
on inside a building is important, not what it is called/named. Finally,
an effective middle grades school evolves over time.....there is no single
event which occurs....and, the journey never really ends.
Phil Binkley
Ohio Middle School Association
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle" <mpedigo@Barren.k12.ky.us>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] Math team?
Phillip wrote: Why is it "either/or" relative to curriculum/instruction,
or organization? Why not both? Can't each support the other, in fact, aren't/can't
they be interrelated?
Yes, Phillip, I believe they can and should support one another. Actually,
the organizational structure must support curriculum and instruction. Many
times, though, we allow adult wishes to drive the organization, instead
of the results we are trying to get.
Michelle
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] 'REINVENTING' CHAT
Last night Hayes Mizell wrote:
>Certainly there are wonderful examples of where a principal and a faculty
truly "get it" and are more or less on the same page in working
together to translate the middle school CONCEPT into middle school PRACTICE.
But this is too often the exception rather than the rule. In many places,
as Tom says, there are attempts to implement the structures and processes
of what people understand to be the middle school concept, but these efforts
seem to falter when it is necessary to move beyond the mechanics to higher
order practice.>
I want to pick up on Hayes' comment (see above) about the inability to move
into practice that really impacts student learning.
I just came back from a teacher education conference in NY with some wonderfully
powerful educators (K-doctoral school). We were looking at teacher education
curriculum issues and I've been struck since then that the problem may be
fundamentally on how we look or don't look at learning.
I come in through the development door. I did this before I really knew
about middle schools, but that's another story. I look at development as
my entry point which leads to student and learning. From here I'm shaped
by the standards I have to deal with which points me toward student performances
and dispositions as well as knowledge.
But in my thinking recently I've been tripping over the "learning"
point and I wonder, back to Hayes' comment, if part of our problem is that
we really don't pay attention to how students learn (and as a teacher educator
I think a massive part of the problem is at my level). John Lounsbury in
his chat last year said that young adolescents learn with their mouths and
their hands open. I think John has captured that well.
Are we really looking at, thinking about, student learning? Or are we going
through the motions of "activities" and calling that teaching?
This gets us into a number of areas--ignore the standards for a moment--one
of them being "less is more" (see all of the Coalition of Essential
Schools materials for this topic). Are we really looking at student learning
like we should--which is one of the reasons for having a team rather than
a department; here you have a number of professionals who see the same students
every day who can help each other to see how kids learn best and coordinate
both instruction and curriculum. And teams were designed to cut down on
the massive numbers of students that departmental situations had.
And if you throw in the idea of looping with a group of students and you
make partner teams (2 person teams) then can't you really begin to look
at how students learn and then begin to articulate to that? This is the
kind of thing that Tom Erb talks about when he talks about the purpose and
possibility of teams.
And if we are to help provide environments for kids to learn then we have
to make them environments where the classroom and its interactions are stable
and secure so that kids can experiment, risk, try, stretch their limits.
And if we do that then aren't we really dealing with many advisory issues--not
some ditto master/seats-and-sheets canned program?
Maybe, in keeping with Hayes' observation about language (i.e., the middle
school concept), we should start thinking and asking (out loud?) "How
can my students best LEARN this?" as opposed to how am I going to teach
this?
Like I said, a massive part of the problem is at my level. If you've been
to college then you know how we teach. And if you go back into school you
tend to teach the way you are taught.
The middle school was supposed to be a school, in Bill Alexander's view,
where students had opportunities to "become." Maybe if we re-orient
ourselves toward student learning this will still be a possibility.
Tom Dickinson
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ellen Berg <ellen@accessus.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
John wrote: > But here's my question: Is there anyone on the List who
can offer examples of either:
>1) How a school's evolution toward a fully realized middle school model
has been stymied;>
Three years ago when Turner became a magnet school, I think all the members
of the staff were looking forward to "real" middle school practice.
It was a great opportunity--only two of the existing teachers opted to remain
(I was one), we had a new principal, new toys, a full summer of professional
development prior to reopening, and a staff that was looking forward to
the coming year with excitement. All the motivation and support were there.
So, what happened?
We had an incredibly knowledgeable principal who had no social skills--I
mean, she rubbed people the wrong way with endless meetings where nothing
was ever decided, she'd ask for input and not listen to anyone on the staff,
and she was a micromanager. Incredibly knowledgeable, but she lacked decisiveness
and the ability to really build consensus and buy-in among the staff. Because
she alienated so many people and lost our trust (and made a few comments
linking the behaviors and race of our students...), we went through all
the channels and eventually pushed her out. We spent most of our time and
energy trying to get her to listen and then, eventually, to get her out
of there, that we had nothing left at the end and no leader to lead us to
be able to do all these wonderful things we'd envisioned. We were burned
out.
The new principal is very into looking good on paper, and collecting the
paper to cover her behind. We have no real input, no real accountability,
and so much of what we have tried has failed because of lack of support
or understanding from all involved. What she does not understand is that
if we were actually doing all the wonderful things we said we were doing
on paper (either at all or effectively), she would look a whole lot better.
Instead, she collects her documentation and then places blame as she gets
called on the carpet.
It is disheartening, and if it weren't for my kids, I would leave.
Ellen
Editor's Note: Ellen Berg is a MiddleWeb diarist.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
Ellen:
I've literally read your posting three times and I'm pretty well stunned.
What an opportunity and what a failure by the leader, followed by more failure.
Is it any wonder that we have teachers who are just trying to survive on
their own, let alone work on other issues; and any other issue looks pretty
insignificant compared to the picture you've painted.
One of the things that's not posted on the web but that's part of the theme
issue on reinventing (and which is in the book as well in an expanded version)
is Mary Gallagher-Polite's article entitled "From Turning Points to
Transformation Points: A Reinvention Paradigm for Middle Schools" (in
the book it's titled "Hope for Sandy: Trnsformation Points: A Reinvention
Paradigm." I think you (and your colleagues) would benefit from it--especially
if you ever get a real leader or if you have a palace revolution and want
to point in an appropriate direction.
BTW, Mary isn't far from you, physically. She's down the interstate at Southern
Illinois University at Edwardsville. If that connection can be facilitated,
let me know.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jack Wallace <wallacej@blazenetme.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
John asked:
>(1) How a school's evolution toward a fully realized middle school >model
has been stymied...
Well, this question is easier to answer since we haven't yet broken through
the barrier. I see it as being stymied in several ways:
1. An administrator in the 80s and 90s who said he wanted to go to teams--never
said middle school--by the next year. But he couldn't take us there because:
a. department heads who had the power, authority and budgetary control
b. teachers who didn't know what we were doing
c. no training for the teachers
d. no budget for teams
e. certification problems
f. he had no training himself in middle level education
2. An administrator in the last three years who has a graduate degree in
Middle Level Education, but has few social skills--whether it's in informal
settings or inspiring teachers or whatever. Sound familiar, Ellen?
3. A major curriculum project for the last four years trying to align our
curriculum with the state's standards (Learning Results). 90% of the staff
development, whether it's before the school year or during our workshop
days, has been spent on this.
We still don't understand the whole concept. I have learned so much from
this listserv, but I alternate between thinking I'm doing ok to thinking
I just don't have a clue. I enjoy going down to the sixth grade and watch
them team nearly seamlessly. It's delightful.
Jack Wallace
Eighth Grade Social Studies Teacher
Brunswick Junior High School
Brunswick, ME 04011
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jack Wallace <wallacej@blazenetme.net>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Math team?
As I've mentioned several times, I am trying to get the faculty on board
to move more significantly toward middle school. There is a lot of support,
but not from the math department chairman. As he is a good friend, I went
to him early on to let him know I was planning on moving the school in that
direction. He appreciated the "heads up", but said he would fight
it to the end. His strong feeling is that it's not the organization of the
school, but instead the curriculum and teaching methods that makes a school
strong. We agreed to disagree.
One of the suggestions that he has said over the years is that he would
like to see a math team. In other words, not a team of students, but a team
of teachers. In that way, we would send our kids to the "math team"
for one period of the day just as we do now for "diversified studies"
(united arts). I love that terminology! Our math is presently homogeneously
grouped while the rest of the subjects are not. I and most teachers have
no problem with the homogeneous grouping in math, and the math scores have
been consistently high over the years. The math chairman has indicated that
he would be happy to support any integration of subject matter, ie, "How
can we support in math what you are doing in social studies, science or
LA"? But he would not be happy to support our taking the kids out of
his math classes to keep them for an extended period of time.
So, my question to the booklist is if you have ever seen this, and does
it work? Is it true to the concept of the middle school? What are your reactions?
Thanks.
Jack Wallace
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Philip Binkley" <pbinkley@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Math team?
Why is it "either/or" relative to curriculum/instruction, or organization?
Why not both? Can't each support the other, in fact, aren't/can't they be
interrelated?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Juli Kendall
Subject: [MWbooklist] My "lost" email
I apologize for resending this email to the list but it looks like it got
lost in the comings and goings over the weekend.
Someone wrote:
<<I can't honestly claim that we were in a stage of arrested development,
because I don't think we ever developed as a true middle school. After one
year, class loads went up to 180 students per day, we lost a planning period,
and teachers began teaching six fifty-minute classes per day. At that point
we just went into survival mode. >>
I agree with the previous statement. The middle school where I worked adopted
a block schedule (4x4) with teacher approval but without any preservice
or ongoing staff development in the area of maximizing this schedule for
students. We also got a new name and a new mission.
Teachers thought their classloads would decrease but they actually went
from about 180 students to 210+ students. These students were spread out
over 2 days so student contacts were fewer but teachers used lecture based
leson delivery and management problems reigned supreme. There was a serious
problem with staff morale.
The effect of the reform, "block scheduling," was eclipsed by
the difficulty of implementing it without proper/adequate training, collaboration,
and on going professional development geared to helping kids be successful
learners in a middle school environment.
Whatever is done in middle school reform needs to be well thought out and
implemented with enough support to provide teachers with the resources to
help kids be successful.
> c. to alleviate this problem we need to "reinvent" middle
schools
I can't access my pdf files right now to review the article, but I imagine
that "reinventing" definitely doesn't refer to "tinkering
or tweaking." The middle school concept deserves a chance to be implemented
effectively. It sounds to me like Michelle Pedigo's school was well on the
way to this kind of transformation.
Juli Kendall
Teacher/coach
Long Beach Unified School District
Editor's Note: Juli Kendall keeps a weekly Reading Workshop journal
at MiddleWeb.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle" <mpedigo@Barren.k12.ky.us>
Subject: [MWbooklist] a school on its way
Juli Kendall wrote: "sounds to me like Michelle Pedigo's school was
well on the way to this kind of transformation."
Thanks, Juli, for saying this. We tried, and we always we knew weren't there
yet! If you want to know more, you can check out the online tour at www.schoolstowatch.org
Let me know if you want clarification on anything.
Michelle
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Math team?
From: "Chris Toy"
>His strong feeling is that it's not the organization of the school,
but instead the curriculum and teaching methods that makes a school strong.>
It's both structure and pedagogy. One supports or negates the other. The
arrested middle school may have the structures in place, but if the actual
interaction among students, staff, and peers is not effective the whole
thing fails. If the structures in the school do not support a wholistic
approach to students all students will not grow and develop to their full
potential. The situation you describe kind of reminds me of a sports team
that has some good talent, but it is held back from it's full potential
by one member of the team who wants to win individual honors.
Chris Toy
Principal
Freeport Middle School
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [MWbooklist] Distant Ports
From: James Fenwick <fenwick@fenwicks.com>
First a few personal words and then some observations on the subject of
reinventing the middle school. Perhaps I might be classified among those
whom some would characterize as being among the founders of the middle grades
movement. I'm not sure how many years backward in time it takes to qualify
for this distinction. I do know that I have been an ardent supporter of
the middle school concept for at least twenty-five years dating to my tenure
as an area administrator, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction,
and as superintendent of the Portland (Oregon) public schools.
Subsequent to these earlier experiences I was privileged to serve for nearly
fifteen years as an independent strategic planning consultant for the California
Department of Education specializing in middle grades education. Four books
on the subject and hundreds of middle schools later I remain even more firmly
convinced than ever of the rightness of schools designed for young adolescents
which are based on high academic expectations combined with an informed
awareness of the need to provide a safe haven in which the profound cognitive,
physical, emotional, and social development changes characteristic of this
age level can unfold and flourish.
Within the past two weeks alone I have made approximately fifteen visits
to middle school classrooms as a part of my current role as a member of
a university masters degree committee. I have talked with students, walked
the halls, and watched kids and teachers at work. I continue to be amazed
at the multiple differences between middle school students and their elementary
and secondary counterparts in terms of their physical, emotional, and social
unfolding -- they are truly in transition between childhood and adolescence.
I have also been struck once again with the emerging intellectual capacity
of young adolescents including their ability to wrestle with complex concepts
and abstract ideas. The teachers I am observing make extensive use of cooperative
learning strategies. This kind of instructional environment makes effective
use of the preoccupation students at this age have with themselves and with
each other but does so in a setting which is focused on significant academic
priorities -- in this instance, mathematics, including algebra.
There is certainly a touch of magic in a well orchestrated middle school
classroom. However, not for an instant would I contend that I am witnessing
perfection. The middle schools I am visiting have many challenges to deal
with but I am comfortable in the knowledge that they will always be in the
process of becoming what they might be. The search for excellence is always
a journey. Few among us ever have a chance to actually celebrate the journey's
end. As someone who will soon celebrate fifty years of educational service
as a public school classroom teacher, administrator, university professor,
and consultant whose experiences have ranged across all age-grade levels,
K-18, I can say unequivocally that there is a pervasive and continuous struggle
for excellence at every level. Again, it will always be so.
There are many valid but often conflicting demands placed upon us personally
and professionally as middle grades educators. It is understandable when
we sometimes feel like stepping back in time to what was surely a better
and more stable period. Proposals for returning to a K-8 configuration represents
a case in point. But this or similar suggestions are little better than
romantic illusions at best and at worst they have the capacity to do irreparable
harm to our students who are ready for the unique focus which middle schools
seek to provide no matter how imperfect our efforts might seem.
It is my observation that the biggest challenges faced by middle grades
educators and what I consider as essential responses include:
1. Teacher turnover which limits institutional memory; it is essential to
continuously review the fundamental principles of middle school philosophy;
2. Administrative turnover which may compromise previous institutional commitments
before the latter have had a chance to mature; the selection of new principals
with a keen sense of organizational dynamics is a critical priority for
those who are responsible for administrative appointments;
3. School master schedules that reflect a lack of creativity in terms of
their ability to allow full and effective use of available time; it is crucial
for school districts to provide the knowledge and technical skills needed
by administrators and teachers who have scheduling responsibilities; N.B.,
whatever is educationally sound must be considered as administratively possible;
the master schedule is the single most compelling expression of a school's
basic philosophy; nothing trumps the master schedule in this respect.
4. Inadequate teacher planning time as well as insufficient teaching-team
planning time severely compromises those who might otherwise engage in creative
and productive dialogue around fundamental middle school instructional goals;
it is essential for teacher unions to vigorously negotiate contractual commitments
for this vital purpose;
5. Existence of teaching teams content with spending their time on trivia
rather than dedicating their efforts to at least some degree of serious
interdisciplinary planning; it is vital that (a) principals help to insure
compatible team membership and (b) that members of teaching teams commit
themselves anew to a heightened level of self-discipline focused on the
true purpose of middle school teams;
6. Lack of a schoolwide culture that supports and sustains the commitments
embedded in a functional middle school philosophy; it is essential for all
staff members to periodically and systematically review and refine their
school's mission statement (far too many schools have dismissed this critical
responsibility); a strong and relevant mission statement has the capacity
to drive fundamental decisions which bear upon the most urgent challenges
posed by middle school students and which ultimately contribute to the creation
of a genuinely responsive and responsible school culture;
7. Professional uncertainty among middle school educators about the rightness
of the middle school as an institution in the midst of parental, public,
and political cries for standards and academic excellence with one breath
and with the next the suggestion that what is really needed is the social
and emotional womb of the primary grades; it is time for middle school teachers
and administrators to strongly reassert the essential rightness of schools
designed for young adolescents and to rededicate themselves to the tasks
needed to achieve this compelling goal.
As a concluding thought, I believe that we must continuously remind ourselves
that our efforts will always be imperfect. However, if we are able to define
our ideals we will predictably come much closer to realizing them than if
they remain vague generalizations. Ships at sea are not in sight of distant
ports. They must depend on either the stars or satellite navigation to reach
often far distant destinations. It seems to me that our educational visions
represent our distant ports and that the firmness of our beliefs, buttressed
by research, can be likened to the assurance that the crew of a ship must
have in the correctness of its navigational instruments.
James Fenwick
Editor's Note: James is co-author of "Taking Center Stage: A Commitment
to Standards-Based Education for California's Middle Grades Students."
See our book listing here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Juli Kendall
Subject: [MWbooklist] The Master Schedule "God"
James Fenwick wrote -
>>3. School master schedules that reflect a lack of creativity in
terms of their ability to allow full and effective use of available time;
it is crucial for school districts to provide the knowledge and technical
skills needed by administrators and teachers who have scheduling responsibilities;
N.B., whatever is educationally sound must be considered as administratively
possible; the master schedule is the single most compelling expression of
a school's basic philosophy; nothing trumps the master schedule in this
respect.>>
In trying to "think outside the box" with literacy programs for
struggling students in middle school, I heard this over and over again.
"We can't do that because of the master schedule. Even when I tried
planning from the previous September for the following year, the answer
was the same. Administrators at our school attended master schedule conferences,
they consulted master schedule gurus and the answer was always the same,
"You have too many variables to schedule around."
Perhaps it is an indication that there are too many "cooks" in
middle schools. I am referring to the ways we find to classify/group our
students. If we could find some powerful ways of looking at student work
and use those to plan for the master schedule, it might drive our instruction
and our focus on helping all students.
Juli
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom replied to James and Juli:
James is right and so is Juli.
Bill Alexander, in a conversation with me long ago sometime back in the
depths of my foggy memory, said that the real reason that junior high schools
failed was that they were too big, too cumbersome, and too impersonal (there
were lots of reasons for this during the age of the consolidated school).
That's one reason for one of Bill's twelve "essential element"
of middle schools--"block scheduling and other time arrangements to
facilitate flexible and efficient use of time." The real idea, and
this has been shown to be effective again and again, is to have a small
group of teachers work with a small group of kids--and for the teachers
to have daily control over their schedule for the benefit of their curricular
and instructional objectives. The movement away from fixed periods of equal
length, the bell schedule, was a primary objective for the middle school.
But then along the way we complicated things greatly. We have so many programs
in some schools, Juli's cooks I imagine, that we have lost sight of what
James is saying so well--the schedule is an overt expression of our values.
That's what bothers me so much recently with middle schools rushing to implement
a variety of high school schedule reforms--like four-block schedules. That
misses the whole point about a flexible block schedule where a team can
group, regroup and subgroup students and move time frames around according
to their needs and they don't have to worry about disturbing others.
I saw a marvelous example of this earlier this year--the team, which was
made up of three teachers: a two person team that had morphed into a co-teaching
team with a special educator attached when they moved to full inclusion,
which was at the 7th grade level was threading reading, writing and technology
through an integrated unit on the environment (the kids had named the unit
"Here Comes the Sun" based on their idea of global warming).
There was all sorts of things going on and for the three days leading up
to their main performance--which was in the library--they had created a
series of workshops in their three rooms and an adjacent work room staffed
by parents. The schedule point here is that you didn't see "normal"
periods--different time frames were in effect, and yes, everyone had a math
workshop they attended since these teachers are under the standarized testing
mandates and they are realists as well as proud advocates for change. I
best liked the peer editing workshops where kids were acting as peer editors
on their final written reports--the good writers were working as "hosts";
the same went on in the computer lab (and glory me, but every one of the
kids had a nametag with "Host" and their name on it--the name
tags being in the shape of whatever they were hosting (a computer, a book,
a rocket ship for the science hosts).
The kids moved through their day with ease--they understood their responsibilities
and were actively engaged with their tasks (and no, I could not tell who
the exceptional students were, they were so integrated in; and yes, every
kid worked through the special ed. teacher's room on whatever she had going
on in there).
The next time I went back was for their presentation and the team was using
their entire four and a half hour instructional block for the presentation
that was broken up into three distinct parts: one was an author exhibit
in the library for other classes and teachers where the kids' writing was
displayed and the kids talked about what they had written to their peers.
This was followed by a block of time for parents of the students on this
team to come to the library to do the same--this time with periodic students
stepping up to a podium and reading (how did the students get to read--the
kids voted on who they thought should do it and it wasn't, I was told, only
on their writing--one kid was voted to read because the kids knew that this
particular young man's mother had been very sick and they wanted her to
see her son and his hard work--talk about the native intelligence of young
people!). They also had cookies and punch and it was just marvelous. (One
of the things that threaded through the unit was "audience" and
these kids learned it well).
Then the kids had a science demonstration, really science and social studies
since each kid had done biography work individually on a famous but not-necessarily-well-known
scientist. The science projects were done by groups and they were a range
of wonderful items and the bios were really interesting--I couldn't name
10% of the scientists they'd researched.
And then in the last hour and a half the kids had two speakers--one from
a local university about his research (the research was on monarch butterflies
and the kids loved his slides and stories) and the other was a research
scientist in a pharmaceutical company. She talked about setting up a lab,
spending years in trial and error, and thinking like a scientist.
The beauty of the day was that this wasn't particularly special--these teachers
blexed their block on an almost daily basis according to their students'
needs and their instructional objectives. They weren't afraid of change
and they were in control.
Going back to James' original comment--the flexible block schedule was their
to serve them and their needs, not the other way around. It really was a
natural learning environment.
Tom
PS: And yes, one of the next things we might talk about is why we've made
the mistake of making middle level schools so big.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Curriculum books and reinvention
Someone made mention that we should list some things to read--and since
it doesn't look like we'll get into the curriculum issue, especially integrated
curriculum, I thought I'd drop some titles. This is only a beginning list
and there are lots more that are out there and are good.
John Arnold's 1993 Midpoints, volume 4, no. 1, A curriculum to empower young
adolescents.
James A. Beane's 1990 Affect in the curriculum: Toward democracy, dignity,
and diversity. Teachers College Press.
James A. Beane's 1993 A middle school curriclum: From rhetoric to reality
(2nd edition). National Middle School Association.
James A. Beane's 1997 Curriculum integration: Designing the core of democratic
education. Teachers College Press.
Thomas S. Dickinson's 1993 Readings in middle school curriculum: A continuing
conversation. National Middle School Association.
Gert Nesin's and John Lounsbury's 1999 Curriculum integration: Twenty questions-with
answers. Georgia Middle School Association.
Elizabeth Pate's (and company) 1997 Making integrated curriculum work: Teachers,
students, and thequest for coherent curriculum. Teachers College Press.
Chris Stevenson's and Judy Carr's 1993 Integrated studeies in the middle
grades: "Dancing through walls". Teachers College Press.
Tom
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Leonard, Maryann" <leonarm@guilford.k12.nc.us>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] Curriculum books and reinvention
Tom, thank you for sharing this list.
I was following the conversation hoping we would get to the "curriculum
issue", but often times I don't think that many see curriculum as a
defining piece of the middle level concept. Yet, for some of us, it is at
the heart of middle school. It's what made us different from the junior
high model. The push for standards and loss of teacher and student voice
within the curriculum will have a devastating effect on middle school. The
list put forth here will help us to remember and refocus.
Maryann Leonard
Greensboro, NC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
From: "Chris Toy"
Jeez.....All these examples of how leadership has been responsible for the
undoing of middle level reforms makes me wonder whether the job is doable.
It sounds like the leader is so key that it's nearly impossible to "get
there" unless the leader is nearly flawless....and we know that's hard
to find and getting more difficult. There's a question here, but what is
it?
Chris Toy
Principal
Freeport Middle School
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eileen Bendixsen <eb@passporttoknowledge.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Curriculum books and reinvention
I had planned to post this later in the discussion, but was concerned that
we would not get to this since Tom posted that he felt we would not get
to the curriculum issue.
In Turning Points 2000 it mentions--sorry I don't have the exact quote or
the page--that they felt with the rise of the focus on standards (and I'm
assuming statewide testing and teacher accountability and evaluations based
on test results) that we need to move away from theme units and the focus
on an integrated curriculum to where each discipline relied on their standards
to drive the curriculum and to make connections between the curriculums
where possible.
First of all am I interpreting this correctly to mean that they are suggesting
that we move away from an integrated curriculum. If I am interpreting this
correctly it seems to be opposed to one of the main points in the criteria
for becoming a true middle school. Unfortunately I did not have time to
read Turning Points before the chat was conducted on the list or I would
have brought this up there.
Thanks,
Eileen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Deborah Butler wrote:
Reinventing Reaction and a Question
Sorry about taking a longer time to "weigh in" as my colleague
Tom puts it, but it was the end of the term until yesterday!
I firmly believe, as all of you who have written in so far express, that
the middle school concept is one that can and does work for young adolescents,
including and especially academic and intellectual development. I am heartened
by what I read in some of your e-mails about what teachers and students
are doing so well everyday, and saddened by your stories of what has fallen
aside, or come to a halt. So what to do in a time in which many middle schools
are in some stage of arrested development?
Surely we need a map that shows us the terrain of complexity of the concept,
the problems that plague it, that require reinvention. The problems to be
surmounted by reinvention are deep; they are structural to the education
system and this society itself in some ways-not impossible I hope immensely
to address, just tough. I agree with Tom Dickinson about one of the major
problems begins with teacher education (preservice) itself. So many states
don't even acknowledge the validity of licensure for the middle level as
a credible separate licensure. Thus, we lack enough preparation programs
to educate teachers initially for this level-and this points to the fact
that there aren't enough middle level teacher educators either to help create
those programs and fight for that licensure! Tom is right too about teacher
education beyond pre-service-as practicing teachers, continuing education,
professional development may not always focus us and re-focus us on the
best education for the young adolescent.
But I fear part of the problem is also, broadly speaking, leadership for
the middle level, at the school level, at the district level (and forgive
me all of those principals and superintendents who are out there doing a
fine job!)- if teacher education often fails to prepare initially teachers,
then the education of the American principal necessary to shepherd a middle
school into being, through the mad currents of reform, and through the shallows
and eddies of continued survival, is really slim! Too often the building
principal is not educated either as an instructional leader, a curriculum
spokesperson and co-creator, nor in the middle level concept; the leadership
education, just like teacher education, is lacking.
Finally, somehow we need make the knowledge about young adolescents, a part
of the common discourse in our society and our culture, the same way that
adolescence in general is a part of the general public's lexicon (I think
this picks up on what Marsha Ratzel was saying in part). We have to reach
parents and legislators and the general lay public with the basic ideas
of the middle school so that it becomes the "common sense" way
to do things. How do we enter this public consciousness and discourse and
become an automatic part of our societal vocabulary and the cultural landscape?
Has anyone ventured out into these connections (leadership and the community/society,etc.)?
What are your stories?
Deborah Butler
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Marsha Ratzel" <marsha_ratzel@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
John Norton wrote: <But here's my question: Is there anyone on the List
who can offer examples of either:
(2) How a school (its faculty and administrators) have broken through the
barrier and are achieving the vision of a middle school that meets all students'
needs -- achievement, development, and equity?>
I could tell you much about our derailment. But I'd rather tell you what
I remember of the times when we were ecologically sound and broke the barrier.
I'll have to say that I was a part of MS faculty that "got it"
but it was quite a while ago. I haven't forgotten what it was like and how
the building felt. As stupid as this sounds, it felt like I felt when I
played in an orchestra. Everyone had an integral part and we depended on
one another to make it all bigger than we could be alone.
Our kids almost had to be dragged home. They wanted to be at school---before,
during and afterwards. Who would believe that Middleschoolers would want
to stay beyond the regular hours? And I think our schools were full of parent
volunteers. Yes, in our middle schools. They helped us stretch the number
of adult hands farther than we could with paid staff. I remember once when
we were working on a testing if we could pragmatically implement "electronic
portolios", we had about 15 moms and dads who came in on assigned days
for weeks to help the kids through the computer obstacles.
It sounded like much of what has already been written in this discussion.
Our faculty read and read and read. And then processed all the readings,
argued over what they meant and how to best implement them. We were sent
to one or two staff development strands --- which both taught us how to
use brain-based learning and integration as the heart of the curriculum.
It took three years to get everyone through, but the leaders helped the
rest of us until we got to go.
As I think back to the integral pieces, we were teamed but pushed to integrate
across the teams and between grade levels and within explos. Talk about
multiple intelligence strands....the explo teachers helped us to use music,
theatre, computers, FACS, and PE to stretch student understanding of a unit
as well as parts of assessments. The ideas flowed back and forth with most
people not grabbing ownership, but rather giving it away. We had a common
vocabulary and shared a common understanding of what we collectively were
trying to do. What we did we knew came from the state of the art teaching
strategies and that we needed each other to work out the little fine points
that make it possible to implement research into a real classroom.
The heart of the building was doing what was best for kids. Knowing what
they were going through and not backing down with our challenge for them
to think and embrace other ways of thinking. I'll never forget how we would
stop for a week at a time and do a building-wide thing. We had culture fairs,
science fairs, and living history museums. One year it was an environmental
week full of guest speakers, students presenting their quarter-long expertise
projects, service learning projects and so on. It pulled us together as
a community and made our kids push themselves. We used differentiation(although
I don't think we called it that), not just to dumb down things so that everyone
could be "successful".
I would also say that our test scores on all those standardized things were
higher than they are today. But I'm not a statistician and I'm sure there
is another analysis that explains why, but I still hang onto what I think
quietly in my own heart. Advisement was the driver for many things, but
we didn't dwell on the self-esteem builder lessons. We built self-esteem
by what they did, the way they talked and discussed their world, and the
way they acted. We treated each other with respect and I got a fair measure
it for myself, too.
There are still large remnants of this era leftover in our MSs. But the
old synergy is dim. Whenever those of us that still have that little light
peeking out find each other, we can still unleash moments that make you
"remember when". But now people are content just to teach their
area and seem to always be too overwhelmed. Paralysis reigns, I'm afraid.
I've argued with myself millions of times over what is wrong. Most people
think that the times have changed and I'm holding onto legends. I know it's
not just one thing that caused us to lose the vision. That's why I so very
much want to learn how to help be a catalyst to re-energize the MS. It's
just so overwhelming and I'm one little insignificant person in a huge district
with even "huger" state funding problems. How can I ever impact
the local political system that needs to think this is a priority? Thanks
for having this discussion and I hope I learn how to be a part of the solution
in reinvention.
marsha
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle" <mpedigo@Barren.k12.ky.us>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Being a part of a true middle school
Marsha,
I too was a part of a very special middle school, Barren County Middle.
All the things you described in your narrative took place in our "community"
as well. It was a place where everyone learned, all the time, including
adults. The synergy there was incredible, and even all the business partners,
as well as parent volunteers, couldn't get enough of it.
How did it happen? Many, many facets happened. We kept reaching, striving
to implement the next "cool idea", and one day, we woke up and
realized that we had something really neat for students (and teacher and
student achievement) going on. We had a plethora of programs, high expectations,
and true parent involvement. It can happen, as you've said. Once we get
it there, we can't let it go.
Michelle
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bivey@k12s.phast.umass.edu (Bill Ivey)
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] 'REINVENTING' CHAT
Hi!
Wow! What a day you all had while I was off at work! While my cookie dough
is chillin', I picked out a few quotes to react to in an effort to catch
up and hopefully move forward.
Thomas S. Dickinson wrote:
>Maybe, in keeping with Hayes' observation about language (i.e., the
middle school concept), we should start thinking and asking (out loud?)
"How can my students best LEARN this?" as opposed to how am I
going to teach this? (...) The middle school was supposed to be a school,
in Bill Alexander's view, where students had opportunities to "become.">
What about putting them together and thinking/saying "How can I teach
this so my students can learn it?" Good teachers probably think this
way instinctively, and it may be that some of the worst teachers believe
they behave this way but really don't.
As far as middle school students having opportunities to "become"
- certainly any school that believes, and acts as though they believe, in
educating "the whole student" would be doing this. That's probably
one of the easier aspects of the middle school paradigm to live up to.
Chris Toy wrote:
>Jeez.....All these examples of how leadership has been responsible for
the undoing of middle level reforms makes me wonder whether the job is doable.
(...) There's a question here, but what is it?>
Did you mean "is the job of being an educational administrator doable?"
or "is the job of successfully reforming middle schools doable?"
I've got a nice paragraph I wrote on the first question before realizing
you might have meant the second which I can post if it does fit the discussion.
And I can brainstorm some more if my initial comprehension was off the mark.
Eileen Bendixson wrote:
>(...) each discipline relied on their standards to drive the curriculum
and to make connections between the curriculums where possible. First of
all am I interpreting this correctly to mean that they are suggesting that
we move away from an integrated curriculum. (...)>
It sure does seem that way at first glance. At second glance, it's harder
to tell. Integrating curricula using content-based standards would certainly
be extremely difficult. On the other stand, integrating curricula using
performance- and skill-based standards should still be possible. And then,
perhaps, once that integration is in place, some content-based integration
mght just slide out and surprise you.
Deborah Butler wrote:
>(...)Finally, somehow we need make the knowledge about young adolescents,
a part of the common discourse in our society and our culture, the same
way that adolescence in general is a part of the general public's lexicon
(...) How do we enter this public consciousness and discourse and become
an automatic part of our societal vocabulary and the cultural landscape?
Has anyone ventured out into these connections (leadership and the community/society,etc.)?
What are your stories? (...)>
Well, for one thing, we've got to talk it up. How many times have you all
heard "Oh, you work with teenagers. You must be a saint." Okay,
that's insulting to the kids (and vaguely insulting to us as well), but
it's also a conversation starter. "Nope, I'm not a saint, not even
close. Besides, I get back at least at much as I give." might be a
nice rejoinder, and hopefully you can extend that into a real conversation.
When I get going on what my kids actually do, as opposed to just a generic
"They're so cool.", the reponse I get is invariably very positive.
I also think that (going along with the "What price modesty?"
discussion on the main list) we can't shy away from P.R. opportunities.
The more the community at large sees what these kids do, the more evidence
will pile up that contradicts the popular stereotypes. Even community service,
which so many of us feel should be done from a spirit of giving and not
to draw attention to ourselves, should probably be publicized regularly.
It actually helps the kids feel good, too, I believe. I do send out P.R.s
from time to time, and periodically do reflective essays which are usually
themed around the richness of sharing interpersonal connections with teenagers.
Again, the response to anything I've gotten published has never been anything
but positive.
At the same time, I recognize that many adults' memories of what kids were
like back in their day will have filtered out just enough of the less pleasant
stuff that kids today will pale in comparison. After all, didn't a good
many Greeks in Plato's day feel that kids were undisciplined, selfish and
unruly, and that society was just generally going to the dogs? And a large
part of every subsequent generation? If all this were really true, there
wouldn't be even a veneer of civilization left by now, I would think.
In short, it's probably a Sysyphean task to create a positive image of teenagers
in our society, but who better to take that on than teachers? ;-)
I think my dough is chilled. Good night for now!
Take care,
Bill Ivey
Pine Cobble School
Williamstown, MA
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jack Wallace <wallacej@blazenetme.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Distant Ports
James Fenwick writes:
>As a concluding thought, I believe that we must continuously remind
ourselves that our efforts will always be imperfect. However, if we are
able to define our ideals we will predictably come much closer to realizing
them than if they remain vague generalizations. Ships at sea are not in
sight of distant ports. They must depend on either the stars or satellite
navigation to reach often far distant destinations. It seems to me that
our educational visions represent our distant ports and that the firmness
of our beliefs, buttressed by research, can be likened to the assurance
that the crew of a ship must have in the correctness of its navigational
instruments.>
What a lovely metaphor. As a sailor on the Maine coast, there have been
many times when I have ventured out in fog, with visibility down to a couple
of hundred yards, and gone from a safe port to a destination 20 miles away.
Why did I do that? A sense of adventure, a sense of dealing with situations
as they came up and a sense of accomplishment when I arrived in the next
safe port.
What did I have to guide me? In my early years, I did dead reckoning, ie,
with charts, knotmeter, compass. Currents in the water threw me off, of
course, and I learned to deal with those uncertainties. I had an idea where
I wanted to go, but didn't quite have the tools to get there most efficiently.
In this modern age, with GPS, I can see exactly where I am, can adjust more
easily and arrive at the destination relatively unscathed. There still appear
those rocks that I sometimes end up south of instead of north of, but making
the identification of the rock is a lot easier.
Well, in the early years, we had an idea of what we wanted in middle level
education, but the tools were fairly rudimentary. Now we have the tools
(the research, the internet for sharing ideas quickly) and it seems to me
that we can now get there more efficiently. We know now what works in middle
level education--the research has been done--and it's up to us to move forward
together.
Jack Wallace
Eighth Grade Social Studies Teacher
Brunswick (ME) Junior High School
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jack Wallace <wallacej@blazenetme.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
Chris Toy wrote: >Jeez.....All these examples of how leadership has been
responsible for the undoing of middle level reforms makes me wonder whether
the job is doable. It sounds like the leader is so key that it's nearly
impossible to "get there" unless the leader is nearly flawless....and
we know that's hard to find and getting more difficult. There's a question
here, but what is it?>
Well, in our early years of reform, we ran into more teacher obstacles.
We were set up as a junior high, people had been hired as junior high teachers,
the principal was a junior high guy, and the community saw us as a junior
high. So there were major stumbling blocks.
Now, we have a guy who knows the stuff. When I was talking to him recently,
he knew the words, the phrases, the practices. In fact, from all the reports
I've heard, he was the quintessential middle school teacher for years: used
projects, group work, kinesthetic methods in science classes, no lectures,
took kids outside, etc. But he has a hard time communicating these ideas.
My path is to show him that the staff wants this, that we are supportive,
that we can do this. He was completely unaware that there was major support
for going forward. That's due to the fact that he doesn't communicate very
well. When another colleague and I spoke to him the other day for two plus
hours, it was longer than I had spoken to him in the past three years altogether!
So, the answer to your unspoken question is we want a leader who can communicate,
who knows what middle level education is all about, who has the support
of the central administration, who can inspire the troops to go the next
step, etc. Hmm, flawless? Nahh, I want someone with fire.
Jack Wallace
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle" <mpedigo@Barren.k12.ky.us>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
Bill Ivey wrote, regarding expecting student-centered curriculum:
"What about putting them together and thinking/saying "How can
I teach this so my students can learn it?" Good teachers probably think
this way instinctively, and it may be that some of the worst teachers believe
they behave this way but really don't."
This is the key to true education reform. Adults really thinking and acting
upon what they must do to facilitate student learning, not doing what they've
always done or what is easy, and yes, this is an onerous task.
Think about all the things we would be doing if we really operated under
this assumption. We'd be devouring and studying anything that gave more
information on the "digital child" because that is really who
we serve. We'd be reflecting around the brain-research and implementing
it. We'd consistently operate under the multiple intelligences realm. Now,
think of all the classrooms you know that actually have these things put
into place...and all the ones that do not.
Another piece to this is the "whatever it takes" mentality, and
hard as I try, I find few adults who REALLY operate under this umbrella.
To accomplish this attitude, one almost has to have a missionary zeal, and
the ones who do accomplish high levels of student learning each and every
day for many or ALL of their students.
So, what do we do about it? First, we do ourselves a disservice, when we
really don't mean to. You see, as teacher leaders, administrators, staff
developers, and researchers, etc., we see teachers as "our students"
as we look to "grow" them. Consequently, when we work with them,
we dialogue around their behaviors and many times we never get around to
discussing specifically what will happen with student behaviors when their
behaviors change, so if we change our conversations with teachers, it gets
us started toward a student-centeredness.
Second, Chris, you alluded to the fact that the building administrator is
key and that the job is a daunting one. Both points are definitely right
on. When I wrote the principal diary for Middleweb, I said in one of the
entries that I believe the principal has THE MOST opportunity to impact
student lives/achievement through garnering support and bringing resources
(including staff talents) together that will cause student achievement to
happen.
Now, that I am at the district level, I believe this even more; they are
positioned just right, with evaluation too that emphasizes growth and a
daily walk with teachers that encompasses the appropriate conversations.
I also said that it is the hardest job I've ever had, and again, I still
couldn't agree more. All that said, we must recruit the best and the brightest
instructional leaders for building level leadership, and this also means
thinking out of the box because, as Chris said, right now, we don't have
enough people saying they want to take on the work period.
Just a few thoughts!
Michelle
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Norton <jcroftn1@mindspring.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Let's extend chat - and more
Folks...since we lost a couple of days over the past weekend, I'd like to
suggest that we extend this lively chat through Saturday morning. I'll "cut
off" the List around 10 a.m. EST on Saturday. Anyone who can't hang
around that long can send me a private note and tell me approximately when
they need to leave the Booklist chat and I'll remove you.
mailto:norton@middleweb.com
I'll have the running archive of our chat up-to-date by noon today (Weds).
BTW, our other guest, Hayes Mizell, is having technical problems of his
own. The server at the Clark Foundation appears to be offline. Hayes has
back-up email with MSN.COM, but some of that is coming back too. (This is
not unusual, any of you who are MSN users. They have the highest mail failure
rate of any service used by our MWList subscribers!)
I hope Hayes will be back soon. Meanwhile, I've been directly him to the
web archive of our chat.
John
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several folks have expressed the hope that we will discuss the relationship
between curriculum, the arrested development of many middle schools, and
the need for "reinvention." Now that we've extended the discussion
for a day or so, we have some time to delve more deeply into curriculum
issues.
Tom and I had a private chat about this, and I've fashioned a question for
us to chew on, based on what Tom and I have been tossing around. This should
move us forward.
Have at it!
John
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Norton posed a new question:
One of the critical elements of the middle school that has often gotten
overlooked as the school was transformed organizationally is the curriculum.
In the majority of middle schools the same curriculum that was present in
the junior high school survives -- the separate subject/single discipline
curriculum.
While advocates have endorsed interdiciplinary curriculum from the start,
this aspect of the curriculum was often seen as an intrusion on the "real"
curriculum.
For the last ten years a new theme has emerged in the middle school curriculum
-- integrated studies. Pioneered by James Beane and others, this curricular
position advocated tenents of democracy, teacher and student collaboration
and empowerment, yet builds on the vast wealth of organized knowledge.
More about/from Beane:
http://ericeece.org/pubs/digests/1992/beane92.html
http://ericeece.org/pubs/digests/2000/vars00.html
QUESTIONS:
If middle schools are to reinvent themselves, how should the curriculum
be reinvented? What is the role of curriculum in a reinvented middle school
(one that is forging against the tide of arrested development)?
How can teachers and students co-create this aspect of schooling and yet
survive in a period of high stakes testing and standards? (see second URL
link above)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] OK, let's talk curriculum!!
John:
Thanks, and yes, I'm here until we end on Saturday. BTW, I've been through
the chat posting and it's amazing--I wanted to see how long it all was so
I just cut and pasted the whole thing as-is into a word processing document
and it came up at 84 pages! Now that's impressive!
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Dyck, Brenda" <dyckb@ABCCharter.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] When Leaders Lead
"It sounds like the leader is so key that it's nearly impossible to
"get there" unless the leader is nearly flawless..."
I think your statement is "almost true" Chris. Having several
inspired teachers limping along trying to implement middle school reform
will make some inroads in the classrooms they oversee. They may even inspire
a few other colleagues to join in. Their kids will benefit from their efforts.
But if they have a leader (or principal) that is heading down another road,
it is questionable these inspired teachers will stay at it in that school
(due to frustartion and the call to a more nurturing environment) and continue
to be a voice crying in the wilderness.
However...if there is a leader who has been given the mandate to lead a
group of eductators and does so thoughfully, respectfully and definitely
makes a plan like Tom Dickinson described in his Tuesday posting (..."I
worked with a small, rural middle school in Georgia that was making the
transition to middle school from a semi-junior high school/semi-nondescript
school model.")I think there is much more of a chance that he will
"get there". I am in awe how this principal maoved this group
of educators along. Its a model worth injesting. This guy was a visionary
who knew how to put feet to his vision and had the platform to do it.
Brenda Dyck
ABC Charter Public School
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Norton <jcroftn1@mindspring.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Quiet Time? Welcome John Lounsbury...
John Lounsbury has been in touch and asked to be added to the List. He doesn't
promise a lot of participation but he's reading the back-talk and I'm sure
we'll hear from him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: bivey@k12s.phast.umass.edu (Bill Ivey)
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] OK, let's talk curriculum!!
Hi!
Trying desperately to stay awake after a very late night and a very full
day, I did look through the online Beane articles and pulled out the following
four quotes which caught my attention.
1. "it compels teachers to work with students in ways that give the
students a powerful voice in curriculum planning. This is quite different
from adapting a planned curriculum to students' presumed needs."
The difference mentioned here is of fundamental importance. I have been
doing this kind of adaptation, which by the way works out more and more
easily as my French students get more and more advanced, for years while
thinking there's got to be a way to put the students more truly in charge.
However, can French be easily integrated into a single schoolwide curriculum
at the middle school level in any way other than general skills work and
cultural learning?
2. "Since meanings are created by students rather than imposed by adults,
students use their knowledge and skill to search for answers to their questions
rather than to concentrate on passing exams or preparing for an occupation.
"
This reiterates an idea that emerged in the "Turning Points" discussion
if I remember correctly. I still find the task of accomplishing this with
beginners and even advanced beginners in the French language not a little
daunting, and wish I could see my way clear.
3. "... a set of "life skills," which they described as "a
category of knowledge that is useful across content areas as well as important
for the world of work" in four areas: (1) Thinking and Reasoning, (2)
Working with Others, (3) Self-Regulation, and (4) Life Work."
Given what I've been saying above, the obvious applications of this to French
and even music, which I also teach, are most attractive. Now we're getting
somewhere.
4. "...those common learnings, called "Schoolwide Goals for Student
Learning," are divided into (1) Learning-to-Learn Skills, (2) Expanding
and Integrating Knowledge, (3) Communication Skills, (4) Thinking and Reasoning
Skills, (5) Interpersonal Skills, and (6) Personal and Social Responsibility.
"
This also is a model for curricular integration which could apply well to
French (and music) - indeed, even more easily than the "life skills"
in the quote above. Then I realize that this is partly because "Expanding
and Integrating Knowledge" and "Communication Skills" are
what I'm doing anyway in the off-all-by-myself French curriculum I have
now, all of which leads me to ask if any traditional off-all-by-myself curriculum
could just look at "Expanding and Integrating Knowledge" and say,
"Gee, yeah, that's my focus, that's the ticket." and if so if
that is necessarily bad.
Nighty night (yes, at this hour!) and take care,
Bill Ivey
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
If you look at school and reduce, reduce, reduce then you eventually arrive
at the curriculum question, which for a range of reasons the middle school
has been and continues to avoid. We are, fundamentally, all curriculum workers
and continually work with that most fundamental curriculum question--"what
knowledge is of most worth?"
Part of Jim Beane's brilliant insight is to add "to whom?"
Sometimes I think that school is conducted in America without any thought
to the actual recipients of all the "conducting." I see that semester
in and semester out with my student teachers--they who are so bent on "filling
up time" because of their own insecurieties. But then I can excuse
them to some degree for being novices.
I'm rambling here, but I'm trying to get a handle on why the curriculum
issue is such a problem for the middle school.
I've been thinking most of the day about what Chris Toy was asking several
emails back--about being twelve again.
I remember three things distinctly--
the teachers in my junior high school did not want to be there and it showed
in their daily instruction which was textbook bound (I made myself go back
and think about science--up until that time I wanted to be an oceanographer;
growing up and living on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay had a dominant
influence on this). I did not do an experiment in science for the full three
years. I distinctly remember my 8th grade teacher's response to that query
one day--"You might break things." I stopped wanting to be a scientist
in the junior high school years.
second, I remember how all of a sudden discovering my father. It was like
. . . all of a sudden he was there (he'd been there all along, I just didn't
know it) and he was interesting. I mean that from a young adolescent's point
of view--I found out things about him that just amazed me--like when he
was in high school he was one of the fastest quarter milers on the East
Coast and his high school mile relay team won a gold medal at the Penn Relays
his senior year in high school. Stuff to a young adolescent that was neat
and the dawning, for me, of a new relationship with someone that I was beginning
to appreciate.
third, and this gets to the curriculum issue, was the Boy Scouts. I think
that without them I would have gone down some other road. I was heavily
involved with them--my troop did lots of hiking on the Appalachian Trail
in Virginia; lots of summer week long camping; and lots of merit badges.
One of my greatest regrets is that I did not stay and finish earning my
Eagle Scout. But to curriculum . . . we did all these interesting things--and
you had to read as well as do. You had to find people to help you out when
you wanted to do something--they just didn't magically appear. And you had
to practice, practice, practice.
The curriculum was, as John Lounsbury says (greetings old friend)--designed
for hands and mouths open.
It was also flexible; it built progressively; it provided tangible rewards
(this little round circle of cloth was nice but knowing you could do something
was even better); it was wide ranging--take a look at a Boy Scout Handbook
and see the range of learning that goes on with the various merit badges,
you'll be amazed.
And, returning to Jim Beane--there was choice that the young scout exercised
and it was all integrated together.
What kinds of lessons can we learn here? And what kinds of lessons are there
in your lives--both with school curriculums and with curriculums "outside
of school"? Are any of you engaged in various "watersheds"
like Mark Springer described? What's going on with you and curriculum.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Hayes Mizell" <HMizell@msn.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Ideals and Realities
Wow, what a discussion!
I do think we face the challenge of developing a middle school construct
that every administrator and faculty CAN implement given the constraints
within which they work, including their self-imposed constraints. Sure,
a lot of what is discussed here can be achieved if there is principal like
Michelle Pedigo, but the hard truth is that there are very few Michelles.
What about the "ordinary" Joes and Janes who are decent, hard
working folk who want to do the right thing but, well, frankly, lack the
energy, imagination, or will it takes to create the kind of middle school
that fits with our idealized vision? These educators are not bad people.
They are not the enemy. Like the kids in their own schools, they are talented,
even exceptional, in their own unique ways (which may or may not have anything
to do with roles as eductors), but they are not all great principals and
great teachers. They have other interests, other lives, other priorities.
Creating a higher order middle school is just not what they signed on for
and therefore they demonstrate little enthusiasm for such a task, unless,
of course, they have an exceptional leader to rally and support them.
I worry, for example, about clinging to the notion of an integrated curriculum
when there are very, very few places that implement it effectively. It is
just too much of a conceptual and operational stretch for the average middle
school principal and teacher. There is little evidence that it is possible
to have an integrated curriculum and still meet the needs of students whose
literacy and mathematics skills are significantly below grade level. Oh,
I suppose somewhere middle level educators are demonstrating that it is
possible, but do the exceptions within 30 years of experience justify continued
advocacy for this approach that few front line educators understand or want
to make the effort to implement? When do we focus on what it takes for kids
to learn, not on how we would like for them to learn?
Sorry, but I have to sign off. My teacher wife needs the computer. Best
wishes to all.
Hayes Mizell
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ellen Berg <ellen@accessus.net>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Doing and learning...
Tom wrote:
> What kinds of lessons can we learn here? And what kinds of lessons
are there in your lives--both with school curriculums and with curriculums
"outside of school"?>
I think the doing is SO important with our kids, building their confidence
that their interests are valid and they can find the answers on their own.
I really witnessed that today in my after school club. Essentially, all
of our after school clubs are studying Egypt, and we are all doing projects
connected with the topic and our individual club focus (mine is communications--writing,
speaking, performing, etc.).
I have a small group of kids who got interested in Cleopatra and decided
to write a play about her to perform for the school. (They were fascinated
because they figured out she'd had a child with a man she wasn't married
to and basically hooked up with powerful men to save her own power...their
conclusions!) They pieced together various bits of knowledge from different
sources and wrote a play that covers the time from when Cleopatra was expelled
from power by Ptolemy's supporters to her trist with Ceasar to Mark Antony
to her own suicide. They reviewed the script endless times, rewrote parts--it
was amazing to watch.
Today, since this is the last club meeting before holiday break, we watched
a movie about Cleopatra. They were riveted! They were filling in gaps, predicting
events, etc. as we went along. They were also irritated when the movie makers
got a part "wrong"--"Didn't they do their research, Mrs.
Berg?"
We had a few guests in our club from another club, and they were much less
interested. The point is my club members had already invested their time
and interest in the subject, so they found the movie valuable, thus deepening
and cementing their own understandings.
We have to take advantage of our students' interests and unique perspectives.
We also have to trust that if we allow them to investigate various areas
within our content (with our guiding hand), they will either discover the
information and concepts you need them to know along the way or, because
of their earlier authentic investment of time and attention, they will be
eager to hear what you have to say on the subject as you help fill in the
gaps.
It is somewhat trickier than telling them everything you know on the topic,
but well worth the effort. As a friend of mine always says, telling isn't
teaching. We have to help them own the learning beyond the test.
Ellen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson"
Hayes said:
>I worry, for example, about clinging to the notion of an integrated
curriculum when there are very, very few places that implement it effectively.
It is just too much of a conceptual and operational stretch for the average
middle school principal and teacher.>
I will respectfully disagree--until we have really tried it in middle school.
I don't think we have and until then I don't want to advocate throwing that
overboard.
One of the problems, and I've said this too many times, is that the curriculum
now in operation at the middle school is a relic of the junior high school
and that was borrowed from the high school which borrowed it from the university.
I don't think that even 100 years of imposing a particular curricular order
is valid. To quote Jim, separate subjects for young adolescents is bad learning
theory.
I don't think very many of us really believe that this is how youth learn
(in separate subject disciplines). It may be the way that the system operates
and yes, it may be the way it will continue to operate (we still have a
rural, agricultural calendar dictating to schools and we've long since moved
off the farm).
I've taught this model of curricular organization to undergraduates at three
different universities with success and seen them use it where they were
on teams that didn't act like "I've got to have my 47 minutes for math
and that's it". I've worked with graduate students/inservice teachers
in Georgia who were using it. I don't think it is a conceptual and operational
stretch and I think it happens to be a missing cornerstone in the whole
movement.
If teams aren't working together, then no, it probably won't work. And if
teams don't respect their students' interests, then no, it probably won't
work. And if teams don't believe that youth learn this way, then no, it
probably won't work. But I don't think that those three statements are true.
Hayes also brings up a very valid point that I don't want to ignore. He
said:
>There is little evidence that it is possible to have an integrated curriculum
and still meet the needs of students whose literacy and mathematics skills
are significantly below grade level.>
I'll pass the "little evidence" question since there has been
little implementation and therefore little real research; but on to the
core of his concern--yes, we need to pay attention to students who have
key learning needs in literacy and math; these are keys to continued learning,
well being, economic viablility, etc. I won't dispute that at all and I'm
totally in favor of education helping kids climb the ladders of what is
possible.
But why not both? I don't like the stumbling block idea of "we can't
do this because . . ." The middle school, and I'm going to go back
to Bill Alexander here, was supposed to be characterized by "curriculum
that provides for their continuous progress, basic learning skills, use
of organized knowledge, personal development activities, and other curriculum
goals."
Why can't we have both? Why can't we deal with an integrated curriculum
and still deal with student needs in basic learning skills? John Arnold,
a curriculum writer that I would suggest that we all need to pay increased
attention to, used to advocate that we look at Charity James' concept of
"orbital studies." We may need to look at different ways to organize
the curriculum rather than say "we can't do this because of . . . .
(Charity James was a British educator that John Arnold introduced many of
us to.)
Okay, time for me to sit back and read.
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Effective curriculum, how is effectiveness determined?
From: "Chris Toy"
So tell me this folks.
Can someone point to research findings that show quantitatively that curriculum
integration results in better learning for middle school students? It's
hard to change and it's even harder to change if the data is not clear to
people who do not see the qualitative benefits of integration because they
are not in the classrooms.
I remember Jim Garvin of NELMS and NMSA talking about the need to at least
maintain test scores over time, otherwise it would be difficult to convince
policy makers to support changes. This is a dilemma because I've also heard
that test scores should drop if the changes taking effect, then rise as
teachers and students begin to learn more effectively. Now there's a risk.
Chris Toy
Principal
Freeport Middle School
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Marsha Ratzel"
Curriculum seems so easy. But when you get into the thick of things, it
really isn't. Because you have to figure out what everyone knows, how they
best learn...match that to your own talents for guiding the way and then
help create meaning out of a sea of stuff.
I emphatically think there are commonalities between content areas that
will make teaching to standards very "doable". And I also believe
in the overarching, essential question approach (and yes Bill I hope we
do another summer project). Somehow, for me, these threads hold hope.
I witness so many teachers claiming burnout and a state of being overwhelmed.
And I think it's these threads that will liberate them. Most often, though,
the very same teachers bristle at the thought of an integrated curriculum
because it isn't challenging enough. My experience tells me otherwise.
Last year, I was lucky enough to teach both math and science. Now I've bored
most of you with my love of the constructivist math program we have as well
as the inquiry science program. It was pure joy to teach both because they
both look at the world, trying to answer some of the whys. I was also fortunate
enough to work in a building where our time was our own, as long as students
got to lunch, their explos, and the bus on time.
Since I had the kids for two blocks at a time(one hour for each was alloted
on the master schedule), we self determined how we would be organized. Sometimes
they preferred to work in blocks and sometimes in the traditional 43 minute
class periods. They loved having control over that and I could have cared
less, as long as everything we made progress.
More importantly, math spilled over to science. When I started teaching
stem and leaf & box/whiskers plots, students immediately saw the applicability
in documenting our science inquiries. No one said anything, they just grabbed
their graphing calculators and worked on the problem like we did in math
class. The quantum leap (well, maybe not really quantum, but it was big!!!)
forward in understanding the science was remarkable. Why? Because they were
authentically using the tools of science to get at the heart of the question
they were studying. They couldn't do it as well before because they lack
the mathematical understand that science requires.
It happened the other way too. When we would work on solving the investigations,(remember
our math program poses questions and incrementally builds kids towards understanding
the why behind some kind of algorthim)students would insist on multiple
trials. This really came into play when we were working with integers. We
were trying to figure out the whole negative/positive thing with "signs".
If we thought we had a bead on the why, they would insist that we test our
idea (or hypothesis) with repeated experimentation. Science just spilled
over without me ever saying a word. And then had a true sense that their
"rules" were supported by experimentation and held a certain truth
to them.
I think both of these illustrations are typical of why I think that integration
like this can make what we do more rigorous, put students in the driver's
seat, and still make teaching more streamline. My students' understanding
was much, much deeper than ever before and I know that the next grade level's
teachers have commented about that. Remarkably our standardized state test
scores mostly went up, despite the fact it was our first year of implementation
and most of us didn't "make it through" the prescribed curriculum.
I think a critical issue, in addition to leadership from both the principal
and others, is allowing teachers to stay together with their teammates,
teach the same subject, and not switch grade levels. It may sound like complaining,
but we're not interchangeable chess pieces. Because to integrate and weave
and facilitate is an art. And artistry takes time, practice and experience.
So, if I were re-inventing the curriculum I would push for looking for places
to consolidate and teach many things at once. It helps students understand
more easily and you can do fewer things better. The role of curriculum?
Well, that's a bit tougher.
I passionately believe MS students are capable of much intellectual discovery,
generous with their time and talents, and eager to embrace the world. Many
of the things that advisement addresses can be obtained by learning in a
safe classroom where you dare to risk a "wrong" answer or "float"
an idea during a brainstorming session. Many advisement goals are met as
students perserve with that dumb problem that just won't cooperate or a
task they want to be "just right" and it isn't. Or even being
respectful at our assemblies on Veteran's Day when our honored guests speak
about their time as prisoners war.
So while I would make curriculum the hub, all these advisement characteristics
are embedded inside everything we do. I think we'd all survive high stakes
testing.
marsha
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Keith Mack"
Subject: RE: Curriculum (and other late night ramblings)
I've been lurking a bit trying to catch up and keep up with all the great
threads. So may have missed some important points along the way.
I like Marsha's comment about consolidating. We have schools filled with
staff that can't/don't want to integrate because they are "specialists"
(and therefore special?). The common view is that the best way to learn
is to isolate and narrow the focus. It sometimes gets to the point where
a teacher can't teach math/science core because she doesn't have a math
endorsement. I've taught over 20 years and the last several in LA/SS core
class where most of the year it was difficult to truly separate the two
subjects (in fact the gradebooks almost identical). Anyway, now that I'm
out of the classroom, I wonder if I could get hired anywhere for LA/SS?
(I'd secretly like to try math/sci sometime) The only endorsement I have
is an ancient K-12 Music Ed degree.
We had a distant relative visit from Norway last year. She taught 10-12
students and had the same kids for 4-5 years. Wouldn't this be a great concept
to try? Think of the things you and your team of learners could do and explore.
I also wonder about the six hour day. Why do we have to have kids at school
for six hours - what would happen if they were there for just three hours?
The other three hours could be structured in a number of ways - special
programs, arts, clubs, athletics, home projects/extended learning, community
service - - it would take some time to develop a program and get "buy
in" from parents. Maybe I'd have two groups of 12 students during the
day (8-11am and noon-3pm?). I could drive them places in a van, combine
them with another teacher's team (even at another school), and spend time
learning together in "worldly" and authentic ways and certainly
not in isolation.
I don't know how we can gain momentum when our state/national tests are
all content/subject driven. Teachers are told to teach fractions in 5th
grade and decimals in 6th. Current World Problems? That's only for HS seniors.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is taught in 9th grade so it shouldn't
be in the MS library. Most all of our curriculum is based on students learning
a certain concept at a certain time. Learning too soon is a sin.... Learn
too late and you'll be targeted for remediation. Remember, "normal
is a cycle on a washing machine".
The problem might be that most all of our teachers are a part of this system
that seems to be self-perpetuating - the books, the classrooms, the subjects,
the grades, the report cards and GPA's, the college training grounds. It
takes time to build a new vision and it also takes a community. One of our
problems is that we are becoming a very mobile society and as referenced
in other messages to this list - teams, administrators, and programs suffer
when new blood is not properly screened and then inducted.
Leadership is a concern. I think it has to come from teachers and groups
like the core contributors to this list. Being in out in the private sector
has made me wonder if education has a "marketing" problem. Who
does this for school districts and who does this for your classroom?
Keith Mack
Middle Grades Teacher and Consultant
Washington State
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bill Ivey
Subject: RE: Curriculum (and other late night ramblings)
Hi!
On Keith's first point - although I'm off by myself teaching French for
the moment so this does't relate to curriculum integration, our school is
so small that I have all the grade 6-9 French classes. I'm in my second
year here so it will be a little while before I really see the results.
So far, what I mostly see is a seamless articulation between courses - I
know what they have learned really well and what they have had a harder
time with, and I know their learning styles, so there are less gaps and
less "oops, I really shouldn't have tried that idea" moments than
I am used to seeing. On the other hand, it seems no matter how hard I try
to reach every kid I haven't found the way yet with a few of the 7th graders
and two of the 6th graders; while I will obviously keep trying, it is possible
those kids would benefit from alternating years with me and somebody else.
I *love* the idea of a more flexible schedule. Our community service club
(which I advise) includes about half the students in the upper school plus
all the fourth grade girls, and they are very excited to add volunteer work
to the more traditional fundraising. But these kids live up to 40 miles
away from the school in every direction, and I can already see how hard
it is going to be to set up schedules for service. Also, since Rock Band
is an elective, I have to deal with no formally scheduled rehearsal time
for four months of the year, plus changing membership due to "mandatory
electives." Trying to build a quality program under these circumstances
is frustrating - especially since I believe that kids should be taking visual
arts courses and doing athletics and having courses in sexuality and all
the things that hold Rock Band back from being what it could be.
But I also know that I have lost about 20% of my teaching time with the
6th grade French class due to field trips, special programs, extra rehearsals
for concerts and such - all of which, by the way, I strongly support. But
at the this point in time, if someone asked to take away another day , I
would be thinking "couldn't you please take time from some other period?"
So finding time during the day for community service and Rock Band with
our current schedule is pretty well out.
Having 2-3 hours a day for kids to be involved in hands-on work that gets
them wonderful life experience and builds their self-esteem would be absolutely
wonderful. It would, however, take a radical shift in thinking and expectations
on the part of the entire school community - teachers, parents and even
students. Bringing about that shift would be the tough part.
Does it show that I got over 10 hours of sleep last night?! Vivent les vacances!
Take care,
Bill Ivey
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson"
Subject: Re: Effective curriculum, arrested development and reinvention
Bill has put his finger on one of the really key elements here (someone
else picked up on this earlier with their comment about if we were serious
we'd be learning more about the "digital child", etc.--can't find
the exact message in the mailbox). I go back to one of my earlier statements
about the origins of the middle school--it was new and different. I don't
think we really thought about how different and how new back then, but it's
obvious that lots of us have thought about that now.
Maybe, as Jim Beane has said, the middle school has had the success it has
had because it really has only "played around the edges" (my comment)
with the organizational issues and not tackled the really hard concerns
like curriculum or fitting all these highly interwoven concepts together.
That's part of my reason for criticizing the lack of leadership from National
Middle School Association. It hasn't tackled the really hard issues.
But going back to Bill's comments and the comments of others--how do we
engage in a radical shift in thinking and expectations, especially given
our embedded complacency about really changing something like school (I'll
point to my previous comment about the agricultural school calendar again)?
Do we do it in individual teams like Jack Wallace is trying to do and hope
that can spread to a whole school? Or do we try to find the Michelle Pedigo's
for our administrative programs? Or do we just continue to "muddle
through" with "islands of excellence in the stream" of profound
complacency?
I made an aside in an earlier message that someone should ask me how the
whole "arrested development" and "reinvention" paradigm
came up. I think it's time . . .
Six years ago Ken McEwin, Doris Jenkins and myself were working on a large
national study of middle schools that NMSA published titled America's
Middle Schools. It was a very large sample of middle schools (that we
are currently doing again) and we were translating the data into charts.
Ken was loading numbers into his new Harvard Graphics program and Doris
and I were watching and making comments over his shoulder. The first one
that Ken loaded was the question about instruction where we asked about
forms of instruction and their use. When the chart appeared on the screen
the three of us looked at it and then yelled at Ken that he'd entered the
data incorrectly because we knew the trend line was wrong. Ken, who is a
computer genius, took our comments in stride and then reversed the entry
of the data and what we came up with looked like goobldy-gook--it made no
sense at all.
Ken quickly re-entered the data from the first attempt and we three sat
there stunned, quiet for a long time. The data clearly showed that in our
random sample (which was 30% of the middle schools in the entire nation)
was using direct instruction regularly or over 90% of the time and every
other form of instruction rarely). That was the very moment that I knew
we were in trouble as a school or as a concept, call it what you will. If
after all the work we had supposedly done, if after over thirty years of
middle schools we had not penetrated into classrooms and changed instruction,
then we were in big trouble.
That's when I started looking much deeper at what I was seeing; started
asking questions a little more pointedly; started re-reading what the founders
had written about the "new school in the middle."
Two weeks later I was in a school not far from where I live, working with
their teams; at least that was what I was told when they called. I was to
meet with individual teams for two hours during the school day--there was
a rotating substitute "team" that took over classes. The first
team showed up 35 minutes late, said they already knew this and told me
that I didn't understand teaching if I was at a university and left; they
were all 8th grade teachers and they'd been involuntarily moved to the middle
school some years ago.
The next team, the 7th grade team, didn't show at all--I found out later
that they didn't talk to each other and rarely even sat in the same room
together. Then I met the 6th grade team--to make a long story short they
won an interdisciplinary team/unit teaching award the next year from a national
publisher--and they were already doing everything they should and more and
all I did was validate what they already knew.
The principal, who didn't apologize for his two other teams when I left
that day, said that "I had to understand that we were a good school
and we'd tried all that stuff and if the teachers didn't want to do it,
well, he couldn't make them." He'd been there as principal for 22 years
and he was going to retire in that job.
That's when I turned to my cognitive-moral development training and the
work of Lawrence Kohlberg and took his term of "arrested development"
for what I was seeing. The "reinvention" came about from continuing
dialogue with colleagues about the original concept--which lead to the first
line of the book/article.
So that's how this all came about. Bill Ivey's comment is too the point.
To do this correctly (and we've touched on many of the elements that are
necessary) will "take a radical shift in thinking and expectations
on the part of the entire school community."
Tom
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Marsha Ratzel"
Subject: [MWbooklist] Standards don't Have to Mean Poor Teaching
Just a thought. And I know all of you already know this. But I wanted to
articulate it so I won't forget.
Even though we need to be critically aware of the state assessments and
standardized tests, there is no reason that the content has to be taught
in an non-integrated, kid unfriendly way. We just looked at our state science
assessments and realized there was great opportunities for improvement in
some areas. We did the extremely detailed oriented item analysis to find
which items were bringing those scores down.
Then the coordinating teacher for science grouped those items and traced
back where the concepts were supposed to have been taught. We found gaps.
Plain and simple. And we found overlaps. As she looked at the items, it
became clear that a systemic understanding was missing for our 7th graders.
Maybe they knew the "facts" but they certainly couldn't transfer
knowledge....and I guess that is one of my benchmarks for true understanding.
It also became clear that the content was tough for teachers. Many hadn't
been trained in that area and found it to be dull and uninteresting. So
our coordinating teacher worked with a local scientist to design inquiry-based
sets of lessons AND background briefings for the teachers. My part was to
integrate technology throughout.
These lessons will definitely prepare our students for their high stakes
type tests. But they will be prepared using the inquiry method of science
and focus on the cyclical nature of the process. They should be better able
to answer the fact questions, but more importantly to the teachers in my
group, they'll be able to remember and apply their understanding. Pretty
cool.
So we just need to find a way to do this system wide, district wide and
building wide. We need to find the key to generating the desire to want
to do this.
marsha
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle"
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] Curriculum (and other late night ramblings)
Hello,
Keith Mack and Bill Ivey have been discussing having students for more than
one year, a middle school practice, otherwise known as looping. I'd like
to, as we say in the South, "testify" regarding its ability to
create a community of learners for students. We instituted looping in our
7 - 8 configured school two years ago. Last year was the first class to
have students stay with the same teachers for two years. We did say up front
if there major personality clashes, a student could, with a parent conf.,
etc., change teams. No one did.
At the end of the eighth grade year, students spoke with passion to their
teachers, telling them how the SECOND year had been the best year of their
school year, because they knew their teachers, they knew what to expect,
etc. We also had some success stories with "hard-ankled" students
that we may not have had otherwise.
The teachers also bragged about it. They talked of the time they gained
at the beginning of the year, when they didn't have to get to know the students,
establish the expectations, or explain the rules. They also talked about
how much they didn't want to see these kids go, nor did they look forward
to having to "break in another group." It was a wonderful experience.
All that said, we do have one team who has eighth graders this year, who
is not sold on the concept, and they have struggled with it. However, we
were not going to hold back a school of committed professionals because
of one team.
I know what some of you are thinking...what if the student gets a bad teacher
and has that teacher two years in a row? Isn't it sad that we even have
to think those thoughts? At the point we instituted looping, I could honestly
look any parent in the eye and say, "I would be comfortable, actually
ecstatic, if any four of my children had any of these teachers two years
in a row. A few years back, I couldn't say that, and a few years back, we
didn't loop." With that said, the 25 parents who came to the focus
group around the issue seemed to understand.
We also saw support for curriculum articulation. Now, the teacher knows
each grade level and the content that is taught in it. The first year is
hard, and people need a lot of support, because basically the entire school
has new preparations. That hurt us a little with interdisciplinary instruction,
which we also tried to be about. (I'll write about that in another entry).
People can't truly teach at high levels of integration if they are not completely
comfortable with their content and the way it connects with other content
areas around "big ideas." Yet...another entry.
Sorry this is so long. I'm enjoying this list, though! Quality thinking
spurs quality of thought.
Michelle
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: KathleenA Renfrew
Subject: Effective curriculum, how is effectiveness determined?
Chris Toy wrote:
> So tell me this folks. Can someone point to research findings that
show quantitatively that curriculum integration results in better learning
for middle school students? It's hard to change and it's even harder to
change if the data is not clear to people who do not see the qualitative
benefits of integration because they are not in the classrooms. >
chris,
It may take me a day or two but I will go looking. I have the research that
had been done up to that time. Curriculum integration was my master's project
in 1991. I truly believe it is the way to go at all levels of school. After
saying that I also have to admit that my own 5/6 classroom has moved away
much farther away from this concept than I want to admit. And I have my
students all day. I don't even have to coordinate with someone else!!
When I involved students in curriculum planning the learning they did was
phenomenal and they did not all learn the same things in the same depth.
What I now have to do is think about the standards, the concepts and skills
I want them to learn and then work with the students in developing the units.
This conversation has certainly gotten me thinking again.
Kathy Renfrew
Peacham School
Peacham, VT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Leonard, Maryann"
Subject: RE: Effective curriculum, arrested development and reinvention
There are two strands in the curriculum conversation that I would like to
discuss. First, what are we talking about when we really refer to middle
level curriculum? As a total community, I know that we are not in agreement
about this and it is most evident when we meet at the NMSA conference and
exchange ideas. Are integrative and integrated the same thing?
I thank John and Tom for framing this conversation around the articles by
Jim Beane as a means to define what we mean. Our interdisciplinary units
of ten years plus ago started us thinking in a collaboratively if not integratively,
but a true integrative curriculum requires many things: teacher's knowledge
of content including guidelines and standards, pedagogy, knowledge of young
adolescents in general and specific (my class), and the strength, faith,
experience or whatever to know that when students are engaged in work that
is meaningful to them, in which they have voice and choice, that great learning
occurs. This kind of curriculum may occur in one room, on one team, within
one house or throughout a school.
Which brings me to my second strand, if this type of curriculum and instruction
is our goal how can we make it happen. As many have testified so far, we
do it alone, with a partner, as a team, usually in a small measured way
to start. Once we embrace this philosophically, there is no other way for
us to teach. unfortunately, this is sometimes a lonely road. It's hard and
risky to create curriculum, more so now than ever.
So how do we grow an integrative curriculum? In some way, standards and
high stakes testing may be our ally. With the focus on student achievement
and performance measured in an annual test, many's first reaction is to
teach to the test or teach the test. As these tests become "better"
-- more authentic, open ended, higher order questions, it is harder to teach
the test by drill and kill methods used by some now. Results from traditional
teaching methods do not produce the "growth" expected or required.
Already we see signs of change with a focus on best practices---engaging
students, brain-based strategies, smaller class size, etc. In our county
every middle school has a curriculum facilitator, our job is to help teachers
understand curriculum, plan instruction, and implement best practices. While
there is an emphasis on using data to determine readiness and influence
planning and instruction, I have an opportunity to hold hands with my community
as we work on creating a more student centered curriculum and learning environment.
The work is hard. Everyone will not get on board and I am not always popular.
But, I have an opportunity to move one community along and since we are
a "low-performing" school all eyes are on us to see what works.
If we are successful, then our work on curriculum can be discussed in a
larger arena.
Maryann
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle"
Subject: [MWbooklist] Test scores and curriculum integration
Chris, I'm so glad that you asked about test scores and curriculum integration.
There is brain-research that supports when we integrate knowledge, we remember
it longer. The Galef Institute in Los Angeles, CA fathered the "Different
Ways of Knowing" philosophy of teaching in the elementary grades.
They are now instituting a CSRD grant at the middle level around implementing
the same philosophy. They have all the brain-research to which I am referring.
Their website is http;//www.dwoknet.org
Along those same lines, I can tell you when we instituted Different Ways
of Knowing in our school, which is interdisciplinary in design, written
around Gardner's multiple intelligences, utilizes the constructivist theory
of student-centered learning, is arts-infused, and builds in an excellent
professional development model with follow-up and support for teachers,
we saw our ranking in the state among 336 schools testing middle grades
move from 73 to 36 in one year and from 36 to 27 in the next year.
(For clarification, we choose to rank ourselves; Kentucky doesn't rank one
school against the other; but it was a measure for us to determine if we
are improving or not).
Yes, all the things that are being said about curriculum and what it needs
to be for students is hard to change. However, we must remember that we
are creating thinkers and problem-solvers who must be prepared to deal with
a body of knowledge that changes multiple times over during their lives.
We are not creating students who can go to work in a factory and deal with
an industrial-based society because that society definitely no longer exists.
No one would go to a doctor who uses ether as an anesthetic; however, we
will put up with teachers, schools, and leaders using practices that are
dated just as much as this practice.
Also, integrated and interdisciplinary instruction just make common sense.
They are real-life. Where else in the world do we think about ONLY English
for fifty minutes; then we are allowed to think about math for ONLY 50 minutes;
then we must shut that off, and think about the history of our country.
See where I'm going?
On the other side of the coin is that teachers have to have time to plan
high quality interdisciplinary units, around big concepts, not menial themes
like holidays or apples. With common planning and extended planning times
(via substitutes or stipends), teachers can get there. They need job-embedded
support and expectations from the building leadership to make it happen.
So...if I were writing the ideal curriculum, I'd write what I must teach
in the subject areas to meet state/national standards in them. Then, I'd
find ways to move things so that everything is taught in an interdisciplinary
format across the team, with flexible blocks of time. Then, I'd embed student-centered
learning events, where students are engaged and actively reflecting around
process of learning and the content learned, and that differentiated for
all levels of students and all types of learners. Then, I'd build in assessments
that asked students to move to the same level as they were learning the
information, including synthesis, analysis and evaluation.
I'd expect that I would use rubrics/scoring guides with the students prior
to the learning experiences (some created by me; some by them) to ensure
that they understood the expectation. Finally, professionally, I'd hold
myself to looking at their work through the lens of the standards and determined
what events in the classroom create high level thinking and problem-solving
and change my practice accordingly. Yes, this is a hard, hard job.
Honestly, I taught one whole day at our middle school a few months ago,
and I tried to embed as many of these things as possible in one day. Couple
that with quality questioning techniques that promotes high level thinking,
and I left "reflecting" that because I understand so much more
about teaching and learning now than when I was in the classroom, that I
also understand that to do it well, one must almost be a master teacher.
With all that said, I'm still idealist enough to believe that this inordinate
amount of change for our classrooms and our schools can be accomplished,
because it's all about our future...it's all about our kids.
Thanks for listening (as you probably can tell, I'm pretty passionate about
this middle school curriculum thing!)
Michelle
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From: John Lounsbury <jlounsbu@mail.gcsu.edu>
Subject: Some reflections
I'm not sure that the old idea "better late than never" is apt
here, but I read quickly the recent messages and have a few off-the-cuff
comments to make as a result .
In my judgment, curriculum integration is time and learning efficient, something
that cannot be said for a fragmented departmentalized one. And all I know
about young adolescents and the principles of learning lead me to keep the
concept of curriculum integration as the ultimate goal and stay the course
of trying to implement it.
Granted, it is difficult and slow to take hold. The reasons for this are
many "but we've always done it that way," long-standing traditional
ways of organizing, and lack of appropriate teacher preparation are among
reasons for this. To me one of the underlying problems is the lack of understanding
on the part of the general public and much of the profession about what
an education is all about.
I am reminded of the remark of Mark Twain who said "I never let my
schooling interfere with my education." I am fearful that we have come
to emphasize schooling to such an extent that we have forgotten that young
people are acquiring an education all the while - with or without the overt
assistance of professional teachers. I think we've got to increase the understanding
of people about the broader aspects of an education and instill more in
the public mind the goals of education, ones not touched by content instruction
or standardized tests.
When Hayes says "when do we focus on what it takes for kids to learn,
not on how we would like for them to learn," I think they are really
one and the same. Current organizational arrangements, even the interdisciplinary
team that utilizes instructional practices that perpetuate passive learning
violate what we know about how learning best takes place.
While it is true that there is a lack of sufficient hard data to justify
pushing the integrated curriculum - though there are increasing amounts
of it - I think the corollary question has to be asked, "What research
is there to justify present practices?" Isn't the reality that the
use of those common practices has resulted in the low student achievement
that we are all concerned about?
I am still convinced that the cheapest way, most effective way, and most
readily achievable way to improve education is to involve the students more
in deciding what to study and how to study it. So long as we consider a
curriculum something pre-determined and prescribed and then "delivered"
we perpetuate passive learning and fail to involve the learners.
I note Ellen Berg's comments in that connection and like her comment when
she said "We have to help them own the learning beyond the tests."
Conscientious adults, anxious to ensure that young people would learn what
they feel they should learn have over-prescribed, and, as a result, all
but eliminated student involvement in the way most insruction is carried
out. We know that young adolescents, like adults, learn best in situations
where they are actively involved in determining the climate and conditions
of that environment.
While I would advocate maintaining the concept of an integrated curriculum
as our ultimate goal, at the same time I recognize that there are, as Hayes
says, "a lot of Joes and Janes " running and teaching in our schools.
And with these decent, hard-working people there is much to be done to improve
the quality of education.
The journey from the fragmented departmentalized curriculum to curriculum
integration is a long one and requires major leaps in faith when one has
to go outside one's own experiences; yet there are steps to be taken. We
still don't have even interdisciplinary teams and common planning in all
middle schools, which is a major first step. And I confess that perhaps
my biggest disappointment in the middle school movement to date is that
we all too often organized teams and declared victory and saw the team as
the end rather than the means to the end.
The big push in the next ten years will be to exploit the potential of teaming
which has rarely been done. Occasional correlation is a good thing, but
that is not what we are really after. Staff development and adequate planning
time are needed to help teachers grow personally and professionally. One
of the things needed is investing in the role of team leader a professional
leadership component that is rarely seen as a part of the job.
We also need to organize in ways that keep teachers and students in relationships
longer. We have failed to realize the degree to which teaching is a relationship,
and the impact of good teachers is a result of a relationship as much as
instruction. In order to guide youth in both their schooling and their education,
effective teachers need to be with them more than them more than for 47
minutes once a day for nine months. We need to organize in ways that provide
a continuity of caring and content.
Well, enough of this philosophizing, but I appreciate the opportunity to
put my oar in the water and muddy it a bit. Enjoy the holidays and keep
the faith.
John Lounsbury
Georgia College and State University
National Middle School Association
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From: "Pedigo, Michelle"
Subject: RE: Hayes Mizell's comments
Even with my passion for integrated/interdisciplinary curriculum (I know
they are not like terms, but I like them both, so I use them together),
I do agree with Hayes when he says, "I worry, for example, about clinging
to the notion of an integrated curriculum when there are very, very few
places that implement it effectively. It is just too much of a conceptual
and operational stretch for the average middle school principal and teacher."
That said, I would say we put our efforts into the other points of my curriculum
post about teaching students differently, to become different kinds of thinkers
for a different future than we had when we were in school.
Because we no longer are preparing them for an industrial society, the look
of our classrooms, even the single-subject lesson must be different. The
process by which students learn concepts will directly relate to how well
they are able to problem-solve with those concepts. This change is a must,
if we are going to survive as schools, as public education system, as a
nation, I believe.
And, thanks for the compliment, Hayes, but I do believe more principals
can measure up (many do already), if we delineate the expectation and coach
them through their own specific professional development while providing
resources and support from the district level, as well as following-up on
the expectations for them and their schools. If we do all this, we will
see a higher quality of school leadership than we see now. However, notice
the emphasis on specific professional development and district level support.
As we know, in many cases across our country, this is not happening for
school leaders. We do have much work to do.
Michelle
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From: "Chris Toy"
Michelle quoted Hayes: ""I worry, for example, about clinging
to the notion of an integrated curriculum when there are very, very few
places that implement it effectively. It is just too much of a conceptual
and operational stretch for the average middle school principal and teacher.">
Wow....the last sentence in the paragraph is something that never crossed
my mind. Is this accurate? If so, why? Perhaps it's an issue of training,
education, preparation? I'd hate to think that the concept is actually beyond
our comprehension. This has serious implications for any possibility of
success. What would we be doing if a concept we were trying to teach students
was beyond their conceptual abilities?
Chris Toy
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From: ellen@accessus.net
Chris,
I think the reason curriculum integration is SO difficult is because it
requires the cooperation of many people to make it work. If you are working
on an integrated unit and one of your team members doesn't buy in, has a
prolonged illness, or simply drops the ball, everyone is thrown off. The
result is a watered-down version and, therefore, a less than effective strategy.
Add to that the lack of *real* training. Curriculum integration is hard
stuff...just where do our concepts connect? How do we naturally connect
so that one subject or another does not have to force a fit? I think it's
ideal for teams who are committed and have the training/experience to do
it. My team has been trying for the past 3 years, and the best we've been
able to accomplish is a thematic unit for all those reasons I've mentioned
above. I think the thematic unit is a starting place and stimulates buy-
in...especially with us since the kids are actually saying, "Oh, we
were talking about that in social studies class!" They are getting
it.
Still, I crave the deeper connections, and I see where it could take children
properly implemented.
Ellen Berg
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From: "Pedigo, Michelle"
Subject: RE: Marsha's comments
Marsha, I agree with all your comments on curriculum, and your comment about
how that leaving people on teams to build relationships on that team supports
interdisciplinary teaching. You are so thoughtful in all of your posts.
I beg another question, though, based on what has been said, and the high
rate of mobility for middle grades teachers especially, what do we do about
this knowledge? How do we nurture new staff into the current team of teachers
who do understand integration?
Michelle
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From: "Pedigo, Michelle"
Subject: Tom's Why Can't We Have Both?
Tom says, "Why can't we have both? Why can't we have basic skill development
and interdisciplinary instruction?"
I believe we can and that one supports the other and vice versa. Again,
there is research to support that we can. However, the "I can'ts"
get in our way sometimes because change is hard.
Michelle
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John Norton commented on Hayes/Keith's postings:
Keith Mack wrote:
"The problem might be that most all of our teachers are a part of this
system that seems to be self-perpetuating - the books, the classrooms, the
subjects, the grades, the report cards and GPA's, the college training grounds.
It takes time to build a new vision and it also takes a community."
I think this is right, Keith. But recall the days before the high-stakes
system took hold. Was the vision built? Did the community come together
to create the cross-discipline, integrated learning environment we all know
would be ideal?
Hayes Mizell's comment about the reality of achieving this dream on a large
scale in middle schools across America should not be dismissed lightly.
He wrote that "I worry, for example, about clinging to the notion of
an integrated curriculum when there are very, very few places that implement
it effectively. It is just too much of a conceptual and operational stretch
for the average middle school principal and teacher."
This from a fellow who has had the time and resources to mount a decade-long,
nationwide search for middle schools that are succeeding with high-challenge
students, using any and every method put forward by educational dreamers.
I think he will tell you that the book of success stories is not too thick.
For sure, there are charter schools and private schools and small schools
where passionate groups of educators have managed to assemble themselves,
create a terrific learning community, and succeed with every kind of kid.
But what percentage of all middle schools do these schools represent? 5%?
10%? And how many of them are in our inner cities and rural, high-poverty
areas?
Now, I heard Tom's response to Hayes: "I will respectfully disagree--until
we have really tried it in middle school. I don't think we have and until
then I don't want to advocate throwing that overboard."
But there's an equity question here that needs to be looked squarely in
the face. How many middle schoolers are we willing to sacrifice while we
work from school to school to school (who is doing this work?) to manifest
the authentic "middle school concept" -- schools that are often
staffed, as Hayes suggests, by principals and teachers who will need an
enormous amount of professional development and support to realize the dream,
assuming there is a critical mass of educators in the school who *could*
realize it.
School folks are so desperate for solutions -- so anxious to help kids --
that they are always looking for guidance and leadership. They listen when
the "experts" spin out their dreams. Which is why the dreamers
need to think long and hard about the potential for realizing the dream.
And what the consequences might be if the support to get there is lacking.
This is not a jab at Tom. We need the visions of forward-thinking educators,
just like we need poets and novelists and painters and musicians. But educators
work in a human medium.
I expect to hear the "either/or" response p; what proof do
we have that what we're doing now is working? But the truth is, there are
any number of "solutions" to the current malaise out there that
don't require an integrated studies approach.
I guess the question is, given the realities of school staffing, high-stakes
assessment, and limited professional development resources, what approaches
are most likely to succeed (most quickly) for ALL kids, especially those
who are unlikely to succeed without the school's help? We may dream of integrated
studies, but my guess is the parents of many, many public school students
are dreaming of children who have the skills and knowledge to break out
of the cycle of poverty and enter our middle-class world. I guess you could
say they are results-oriented. The process they leave up to school folks.
And the process that will help one school move forward may not be well fitted
to another school, with fewer resources and a smaller adult talent pool.
John
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then John commented on Maryann's remarks:
My last message notwithstanding, I think Maryann is really on to something
when she writes:
"So how do we grow an integrative curriculum? In some way, standards
and high stakes testing may be our ally. With the focus on student achievement
and performance measured in an annual test, many's first reaction is to
teach to the test or teach the test. As these tests become "better"
-- more authentic, open ended, higher order questions, it is harder to teach
the test by drill and kill methods used by some now. Results from traditional
teaching methods do not produce the "growth" expected or required."
But here's my question -- how do we "step up" to the integrative
curriculum? What steps must come first? I know many of the teachers on this
list are experiencing the joys and frustrations of learning to be "constructivist"
teachers -- most often, alone, in their own classrooms. I know some are
discovering ways to link constructivist teaching and standards-based teaching,
learning how to do classroom assessment well, differentiate instruction,
etc. Many are doing all of these things without taking the next step, out
of the classroom, across the curriculum, collaborating with all colleagues
to create a unified, wholistic approach to teaching and learning.
Is this exploration of constructivist teaching in the context of standards
and classroom assessment -- alone and in groups -- a necessary first step?
If we ask schools to make a series of moderate leaps, rather than one giant
leap, are they less likely to stumble and fall?
John
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: Re: RE: [MWbooklist]
Ellen wrote:
>Add to that the lack of *real* training. Curriculum integration is hard
stuff...just where do our concepts connect? How do we naturally connect
so that one subject or another does not have to force a fit?>
Once upon a time I taught an interdisciplinary internship class for middle
grades undergraduate majors (this was pre-Beane/integrated curriculum) where
the focus was on interdisciplinary curriculum, planning and instruction.
One of the key components of it was a block of field work where students
were assigned to work with an interdisciplinary team of teachers--not an
individual teacher on the team but the whole team. They were particularly
assigned to sit in on team meetings and to do research and instructional
development that spanned different subjects--my attempt to get them to think
wholistically. By the way, these students had dual subject matter concentrations--everyone
had a primary of one of the core four (math, science, language arts or social
studies) and a second core or a related arts field (art, music, health,
pe, reading, foreign language). The students were already predisposed to
cross subject lines because of their dual contents (over 70% of them had
dual concentrations in the core) but the evaluations of the students at
the end of the semester and our individual debriefings during exams was
enlightening--they indicate that they were beginning to think about "knowledge"
and learning skills rather than content and subjects.
To integrate a curriculum--or even to do a bangup job on an interdisciplinary
unit--is a challenge if you don't have any experience (and I'll borrow a
phrase from David Elkind here) in "thinking in a new key." It's
a whole new exercise in removing boundary lines and barriers, looking for
and discovering connections, freeing yourself to possibilities, and seeing
the natural flow of knowledge.
I think we need, at my level, to seriously look at how to implement courses
and experiences for our university students that would help them move in
this direction. Then we can help teachers, like Ellen, who "crave the
deeper connections, and . . . see where it could take children properly
implemented."
Tom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris quoted Ellen:
>I think the reason curriculum integration is SO difficult is because
it requires the cooperation of many people to make it work. If you are working
on an integrated unit and one of your team members doesn't buy in, has a
prolonged illness, or simply drops the ball, everyone is thrown off. The
result is a watered-down version and, therefore, a less than effective strategy.>
>Add to that the lack of *real* training. Curriculum integration is hard
stuff...just where do our concepts connect? How do we naturally connect
so that one subject or another does not have to force a fit? I think it's
ideal for teams who are committed and have the training/experience to do
it. My team has been trying for the past 3 years, and the best we've been
able to accomplish is a thematic unit for all those reasons I've mentioned
above.>
Then Chris commented:
So it occurs to me that some of the difficulty with our internalizing and
understanding integrated curriculum design and delivery is that few of us
have ever experienced it as a way of learning in our own schooling. We teach
the way we were taught to learn. The way we were led to understand actually
determines how we will impart what we know...or teach, since we teach what
we know. How could we do otherwise?
Chris Toy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eileen Bendixsen <eb@passporttoknowledge.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist]
I hope "We teach the way we were taught to learn" is not true.
I know the way I teach is certainly not the way I was taught. My science
classes were certainly not hands-on or inquiry, they certainly did not excite
me about science and in fact if anyone told me when I graduated from college
that I would be teaching science I would have told them they were crazy.
I think in many ways it was those boring science classes that made me so
determined to not teach science that way.
I think one of the things we all need to become is risk takers. We need
to look at the way we are teaching and continue to evolve. This evolution
can also happen and usually does happen at the same time as our students
are learning. Part of this risk is to be able to say to our students that
we don't know it all. In science with so much changing so often it is impossible
to know it all. If you are doing a project where you and your students are
working with scientists this is the perfect environment to let them know
that while they are learning you are learning with them.
My first year of teaching science I taught three different science courses
and thus basically had three different labs a day to set up. There was no
way that I could do them all myself before using them with the students.
The earth science labs seemed to be the most difficult to get to work and
to find ones that did work. I had the most fantastic group of students for
earth science that year. As eighth graders this was the first time they
were exposed to hands-on and inquiry learning.
There were a number of times that we would get in the middle of a lab and
they would say "I don't think this is going to work." The biggest
thing that did work that year was the relationship I had with the kids.
They were more than willing to work with me and have some of the things
we tried to do fail, but in the meantime many of them did not fail. They
appreciated the fact that (The other seventh and eighth grade science teacher
in the building was also new and was going through the same thing I was.)
we were trying to change the science program in the building and make learning
science not only fun, but something they would understand much better than
by simply using a textbook.
I agree that we probably teach in much the same way that we learn, but I
hope that we also are willing to constantly adjust to the students we are
working with and to continue to take risks and try things when what we've
been doing for years does not seem to work this year. I've discovered that
some of my best lessons happened because of taking those risks. And what
better lesson can we teach our students.
Eileen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shighley@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] finding/training risk takers
How do we nurture new teachers?
I was already thinking about this when I read Tom's post about the undergraduates
who had the chance to experience integration, and the school with one grade
level that was living the true middle school experience, and two grade levels
who couldn't be bothered. I have seen many new teachers who mimic their
supervising teacher, but might have been capable of more innovation. I think
it's imperative that student teachers (and undergraduates in coursework)
be assigned to teams that are high functioning.
Does this happen in your school? Or, do teachers volunteer to have student
teachers to "get time off" and a small stipend?
My first team experience was a dream. Five of us volunteered to work together
as the first team in our school. We enthusiastically met in the summer (food
was always involved), had many special events, field trips, ... I'll never
forget one of our brilliant, "sometimes difficult" students who
reflected at the end of the year that his favorite moment of the year was
"Math Day". Our wonderful, creative math teacher took a different
approach to integration for that day, and we each connected our subjects
to math. Thomas said something to the effect that "learning came into
focus. It was a meaningful, fun day." A mystery unit we completed ended
up on local television. Two years later, our principal broke up the team
to "spread our expertise", which was an insult to the teams that
had formed the year after us. I actually sat in her office and cried. My
language arts teacher team member was one who helped every child discover
a love of reading.
I think it would be great if middle school student teachers were assigned
to a team, or at least two outstanding teachers. One teacher would need
to take ownership of the paperwork, but why not model integration from the
beginning?
And, as I write this, my 7th grade son just asked me how he can find math
things in his literature book. I wonder what the teacher's got in mind.
Susie
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ellen Berg <ellen@accessus.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] finding/training risk takers
> How do we nurture new teachers?
I think perhaps the most important thing we can do to help new teachers
(let alone our students) is to teach them it is okay to fail when we try
new things because we can learn from our failures. Too often new teachers
are scared to death of looking bad in front of their principals and peers,
so they take the safe route. With risk comes fear (for many people) until
they understand that when a risk pays out, the reward is huge. We have to
make it safe for them to try new things, to reflect upon their experiences
(good and bad), and to ask tough questions of themselves and others.
In _The Courage to Teach_, Palmer includes a whole chapter on fear and how
it often poisons what we do and say in our classrooms. It is the most important
reading (for me, personally) I have done this year.
I was lucky in a very warped way. When I began as a new teacher, I was essentially
left on my own. I was enthusiastic and filled with the idea I could change
the world, and as I looked around at my very old-fashioned (and some downright
do-wrongers) colleagues, I figured I could try anything I thought might
work because I couldn't look too bad in comparison. I realize I was lucky
in that I was already motivated to try my best and look for answers, but
the lack of stringent regulations pushed me to take risks I might not have
otherwise taken.
Ellen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lahaskell@aol.com
Subject: [MWbooklist] curriculum
One of the tough aspects of integrating curriculum seems to be giving up
control or ownership. Many teachers I have worked with have special "units"
they teach, and they don't trust anyone else to share the load or teach
that area. As a result, students often get the same thing in two classes.
Now, this isn't bad in itself, but with some much material to get through
to middle school students, why repeat it? A true interdisciplinary unit
would cover it once, in depth, and move on and build on that knowledge later.
Another problem is having the time to put the units together. Teachers are
in the middle of teaching one concept and seem to have problems shifting
gears to talk about next month, or else, here's the scary part, they have
no idea where they are going next.
Last, state guidelines are often difficult for new teachers to feel comfortable
with "messing around". The same can be true to new state mandates.
As a result, teachers seem to be pulling back and trying to teach them in
isolation until they feel comfortable enough to share them with others.
I guess many are afraid of looking "unqualified" in front of their
peers.
Just by observations and two cents. I await comments.
Linda Haskell
Eighth grade
Maine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: SKosmoski@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist]
Ellen wrote:
<< I think the reason curriculum integration is SO difficult is because
it requires the cooperation of many people to make it work >>
Ellen and all--
I am jumping in here terribly late and for some strange reason I am reading
my email from the bottom-up instead of the top-down! But your comment really
hit home. If I am repeating things said by others, please forgive me.
Each of us has our own "fiefdom" if you would, in our curriculum.
We have our own time schedules. As one of our English teachers said very
clearly last week--I don't teach the research paper until March. If they
do their science fair papers in March, then, it will fit with what I do!"
Well, the science fair is March 1st, and the science teacher on her team
was just asking for a little help. When I asked her why she couldn't do
the research paper in January she calmly replied, because in January I teach
the novel "Night." It is hard for me to understand why she can't
reverse the two-but that is her turf, and woe to those of us who venture
onto it.
Maybe one of the things that hinders integration is the fact that integration
is often one of the last things that is attempted when a school moves from
traditional junior high to a middle school. The Coalition of Essentials
Schools puts integration first and therefore it is a priority in their schools.
In my school, scheduling comes first. That's the priority. Integration of
curriculum is fourth or fifth priority with teaming, offering a variety
of electives and clubs, and standards based instruction coming somewhere
in the middle. Those of us who attempt integration are in the minority and
are usually looked on as frivolous.
Mary Anne Kosmoski
Tampa, FL
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist]
From: "Chris Toy" <Chris_Toy@coconetme.org>
I agree that perhaps having been taught one way might cause us to look for
a better way to teach that particular content area. What I was referring
to was the concept of curriculum integration. Most of "us" baby
boomers were taught in separate subject area courses. My understanding is
that integration melds the separate content areas. I'm guessing that students
taught using an integrated approach might not identify themselves as having
been in a science class, or a math class, or any class. The closest thing
in my experience is the concept of integrated science where the study of
science is not broken down into biology, chemistry, earth science, or physics.
Students study themes as opposed to separate content areas. So I guess I
return to the statement that even though we may find a better way to teach
science, the fact that we are striving to teach science in isolation means
we are still teaching the way we were taught.
Chris Toy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Juli Kendall
Subject: [MWbooklist] Standards and curricula
Tom wrote-
>>Hayes also brings up a very valid point that I don't want to ignore.
He said: There is little evidence that it is possible to have an integrated
curriculum and still meet the needs of students whose literacy and mathematics
skills are significantly below grade level. Why can't we have both? Why
can't we deal with an integrated curriculum and still deal with student
needs in basic learning skills?>
Now for what it's worth, here is what I think. Ruth Mitchell (Front End
Alignment) talks about how "Standards are a reform strategy to leverage
change in the structure of school so that all students can achieve. Since
students mature at different ages, and their backgrounds vary widely, some
students will take longer and need more input to reach the standards. Thus,
if you set standards for each grade level, you are defeating the purpose
of standards, because you are requiring the same lockstep porgress that
is so dysfunctional now, especially for poor, minority, and non-English
speaking children."
Also, The RFP (for districts seeking middle grades reform grants from.the
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation), p.11, said "Enabling all students
to meet high academic standards is the primary mission of the school. It
reforms its structure, organization, operation, use of time, curricula,
pedagogy, assessment, and co-curricula to achieve this result."
What is curriculum/curricula, integrated or not, without standards? And
what has happened to standards based reform at the middle level? I don't
think I can blame it entirely on the advent of high stakes assessments like
we have here in California. I think a big part of the problem is teachers
and administrators who are "not clear on the concept" -- the middle
school concept. If we really are to make a difference for "poor, minority,
and non-English speaking children" then grade level "standards"
defeat the whole purpose. And that's where we currently stand -- we are
stuck with statements like "what everyone needs to know and be able
to do in 6th grade."
Tom, in a perfect world that wouldn't be the case, would it?
Juli
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: KathleenA Renfrew <karenfrew@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Curriculum books and reinvention
Thomas S. Dickinson wrote:
> Someone made mention that we should list some things to read--and since
it doesn't look like we'll get into the curriculum issue, especially integrated
curriculum, I thought I'd drop some titles. This is only a beginning list
and there are lots more that are out there and are good....Chris Stevenson's
and Judy Carr's 1993 Integrated studeies in the middle grades: "Dancing
through walls". Teachers College Press.>
I highly recommend this book!!!
Kathy from VT
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Amy Heinsma
Subject: [MWbooklist] Time for vision
Keith Mack wrote:
> The problem might be that most all of our teachers are a part of this
system > that seems to be self-perpetuating - the books, the classrooms,
the > subjects, the grades, the report cards and GPA's, the college training
> grounds. It takes time to build a new vision and it also takes a community.
>
I thinks that the time it takes for real change to occur is a huge frustration.
EVERYONE went to school, so when something new or different happens, I think
it's really hard for parents, students, and teachers to accept or realize
that school could be different. I think people in general tend to fall back
into habits that they know and that are comfortable. It's difficult work
to get out of your comfort zone and be able to explain and justify to the
public why you do things. Maybe this is why it's so difficult to make changes
in public education?
Amy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: (Bill Ivey)
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] How long can middle schoolers wait?
John Norton wrote:
>(...) I guess the question is, given the realities of school staffing,
>high-stakes assessment, and limited professional development >resources,
what approaches are most likely to succeed (most quickly) >for ALL kids,
especially those who are unlikely to succeed without >the school's help?
(...)
Hi!
Here are some related questions - is there a single approach which is capable
of succeeding for all kids? Can such a thing even exist? Does working toward
our idealized middle school model mean we'll be leaving some kids out on
the way? Yes, it's better for more kids than what we're doing now. But *all*
kids?
Long pause. Long *long* pause. Okay, moving on...
As I reread all of today's postings, I seized on this quote: "if you
set standards for each grade level, you are defeating the purpose of standards,
because you are requiring the same lockstep progress that is so dysfunctional
now" (Ruth Mitchell, quoted by Juli) without quite knowing why it appealed
to me so strongly. I think I'm beginning to work it out - following this
statement to its logical end would lead to an approach whereby we care where
they end up but not so much how they get there.
Looping, flexible schedules,integrated curricula (which, realistically,
would probably take a good deal of time to develop), time out from so-called
"core subjects" (a term we have absolutely got to change, by the
way) for athletics, the arts, service and so on - all these may be more
readily accepted as means to an end if the end isn't so immediate. Then
each kid can work through at his/her own rate, in his/her own manner, presumably
ending up where s/he needs to be. There's hope in Ruth Mitchell's statement
for the middle school paradigm, and therein lies its appeal.
However, for this to work, high schools at a minimum and perhaps colleges
as well will also need to buy in to the concept. Having been a T.A. in college
and having worked in a high school since 1985, I know that that will take
work and time, especially if there can be legitimate disagreement as to
whether the middle school paradigm as we have been discussing it can truly
be best for *all* kids.
On the main list earlier today, I alluded to those movements advocating
equality for women and non-whites and how (I believe) they have been making
progress these past 40-50 years but that there's still a long way to go.
I suggested that perhaps achieving an ideal middle school model might also
take decades or more and that some of us might not even live to see it happen,
but that if our work led to that achievement then it was important work
which needed doing. I do feel this to be true on one level, but on another
level I felt uncomfortable saying it, and John has put his finger on why.
How many middle school students will suffer as we work toward our ultimate
goal? "Zero" must be the only acceptable answer, and yet it is
blatantly impossible.
Well - if you truly believe in what you are fighting for, you don't give
up just because the struggle might be long. There were certainly suffragettes
who never got to vote, and at one level that's a tragedy - at another level,
it ennobles them. Had they not unselfishly participated in the fight, how
much longer might it have taken for women to get the vote? I know, suffragettes
were adults choosing sides who knew the stakes, and kids are the unwitting
recipients of whatever adults choose to give them. To me, that makes it
all the more important to carry on the fight on their behalf.
I feel like I'm still missing something here, but I need to get some sleep.
Perhaps tomorrow it will all become more clear.
Take care,
Bill Ivey
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: SKosmoski@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Standards and curricula
Juli Kendall wrote:
<< Thus, if you set standards for each grade level, you are defeating
the purpose of standards, because you are requiring the same lockstep progress
that is so dysfunctional now, especially for poor, minority, and non-English
speaking children." >>
Hi all -- I believe Juli quoted this piece by Ruth Mitchell. Many states
are set up the way we are here in Florida. Our standards do not change by
grade level. However, we have "benchmarks" that allow the teacher
to make sure that along the way students are making progress toward meeting
the standard. I guess that could be termed "lockstepping progress"
as well, but it allows the teacher to really understand where her kids are
in relation to where they need to be in a year or two.
I think one of the advantages has been that teachers are beginning to realize
the need for differentiated instruction in a mixed-ability classroom. They
can see their kids benchmark scores. It is obvious that some students need
more sophisticated content than others.
'Mary Anne
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Bambino" <dbambino@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] How long can middle schoolers wait?
Bill Ivey wrote: ...means to an end if the end isn't so immediate...
I'm struck by this notion about learning and think it captures the essence
of our dilemma as educators. I think we're seeing a disconnect between teaching
and learning because we keep trying to "efficiently" handle education
on a massive scale when learning is profoundly individual, but social, if
that makes sense.
I'm thinking about my early childhood training about parallel play. I think
students need opportunities to learn alone and in all different types and
sizes of groups, maybe in the same day, depending on their needs. Can we
deliver this type of experience on a grand scale and meet the needs of "all"
our students? I believe we can, but won't, until the platitudes about "children
are our future" and "it takes a village..." etc. are translated
to include all kids and not just the ones we look like or who have money.
Tensions are high in Phila. as we wait to learn the fate of our District
today. Will it be a long struggle? Will I live to see the true learning
we've been talking about in public school? I'm not sure, but I do believe
that privatization will make it harder, less personalized and a whole lot
more frustrating for those of us who believe all kids want and deserve to
learn.
Deb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Bambino" <dbambino@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] Maryann's on to something
John asked:
"Is this exploration of constructivist teaching in the context of standards
and classroom assessment -- alone and in groups -- a necessary first step?"
My answers are yes and no. Yes,I think it's a first step, and no, because
that will include an endless array of side steps as we find the right fit
for our students, classes and schools.
I don't think we can or should come up with "the" model for the
right way to do middle or any other school. I think we need a broader exploratory
or constructivist approach to structures, methods and content. I'm thinking
of how a lesson would go really well with one class and bomb with another.
I think we've all had this experience at one time or another, but have we
been willing to really unpack the reason(s) why? I'm not so sure.
I do think we have to be clear that we support high standards, but not standardization.
I also think we should push forward as the champions of assessment, but
real assessment that informs instruction, not just endless tests that further
label and pigeonhole kids for more drill and kill.
Deb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: SKosmoski@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] curriculum
Good Morning!
I've been trying to take time to really think about the last time I saw
true curriculum integration taking place. Several years ago when I was teaching
elementary school the fourth grade team decided to do an integrated unit.
We used Problem based learning (two of us were taking a graduate course
at the time) as our instructional design. We spent our science and social
studies time every day working on the problem. I can't find the initial
scenario we gave the kids but it was something like--
You are a member of a team of specialists who are trying to attract new
business to North Carolina. The people of Virginia have just turned down
the Disney Corporation's bid to build a theme park in their state. You want
them here in NC! Your task is to: Find a location with adequate transportation
systems, perspective employees--you get the idea. They also had to come
up with a theme for the park based on NC History, test soil samples and
water to make sure the environment could handle a park and design a "signature"
ride for the park.
It took an entire semester at 2 hours a day plus to complete the project,
but it was so much fun--four teachers, 100 kids. We met all of our science
(rocks, force and motion, water) standards, our social studies standards
(North Carolina geography and history) and all the reading, language arts
standards and math we didn't even plan on using!
But, none of us saw it as having to give up anything. In fact we gained
so much more than we lost. How then, do we convince our middle school peers
that they aren't losing--and how do we structure units so no one is? My
question is rhetorical--we have to take the first step--
This is it guys--the last day of the semester--the last day before winter
break! I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry--now if I can just shake this
cold--
Mary Anne
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Hayes Mizell" <HMizell@msn.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] What About The "How"?
The following plagues me at 4:30 a.m. so I share it with you.....
Even if Tom's students do understand integrated curriculum and know how
to implement it, and assuming they actually go into schools and do it, what
about the issue of scale? Apparently not all of Tom's colleagues in the
pre-service education community are doing as well or we would not be having
this conversation.
But this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges of implementation.
There seems to be consensus among us that in the main the middle school
that succeeds in developing more physically/emotionally/socially/mentally
healthy students and more proficient learners is still more a vision than
a reality. This after 30 years of effort. Yesterday I had a call from an
Indiana reporter who wondered why over a number of years the state test
scores show a steady decline in sixth grade. I have lost track of the number
of similar calls I have received over the years. Then she cited the virtues
of her K-8 experience and wondered why middle schools exist in the first
place.
Folks, we are not "winning." Neither the public nor many?/most?
middle school educators get it, support it, or do it in the ways this conversation
suggests middle level education should be done, or achieve the results we
want.
But even if we agree on what middle schools, reinvented or not, should "look
like," how do we bring them to fruition on a large scale? In terms
of broad institutional implementation, how do we achieve the student results
we want? Unless we are satisfied with "changing one school at a time,"
it seems that the middle school "movement's" communication, advocacy,
and evidence is wholly inadequate to the challenge.
State standards, assessment, and accountability initiatives have all but
overwhelmed our paltry efforts to develop the kind of middle schools discussed
here. It isn't going to get easier. The about-to-be reauthorized Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (1000 pages so I am told) will, thankfully,
up the ante even further. It will mandate that by 2013 one hundred percent
of eighth grade students should perform at the proficient level. This won't
happen, but it is a worthy and exciting goal, one that all middle level
educators should embrace and use to focus, energize, and mobilize themselves
and their communities.
There will be more Federal money and greater flexibility, but is the middle
school community even close to having a strategy and plan to make sure that
school systems make effective use of either to educate young adolescents
more effectively? Nope. In fact, middle level educators will move in the
opposite direction, searching for and throwing money at the vendors, consultants,
curriculum packages, and workshops that implicitly promise personally convenient
and low-risk approaches to increasing student achievement.
In this context, how are the voices heard in this discussion amplified rather
than drowned out? And beyond that, what are your thoughts about practical
ways to convince others that MOST middle schools can become the places you
are describing?
Best wishes to you all.
Hayes
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: SKosmoski@aol.com
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
Chris Toy writes:
<< All these examples of how leadership has been responsible for the
undoing of middle level reforms makes me wonder whether the job is doable
>>
Chris--
I am so behind on my emails but I have to weigh in on this one!
When I first began teaching in a middle school situation --1988 in a DODDS
school in Germany--we had this incredible principal. You either loved her--or
you didn't! But, she took a junior high school and created a middle school
in two years. She didn't do it piece meal--we did everything all at once.
From flexible scheduling to clubs to teams to advisory. But her focus was
teacher training. She knew she had to have a "small group of committed
people" to quote Margaret Mead.
She sent a group of us to a "Middle Level Academy" where we were
taught to be a middle school. We took classes on advisory and creating advisory
curriculum. Some of us learned to schedule. Others learned how to change
school culture. Others ... you get the idea. But she knew she couldn't do
it alone and that we needed to learn in order to understand the vision.
That staff development piece is so important. The school I am at now is
in a stage of "arrested development." We do have factions that
are working to change that but little things--we have let advisory go in
favor of a traditional homeroom--it's easier. There is no money to pay for
someone to write a curriculum or to purchase one--another word for --it
isn't a priority, I truly believe the real answer is too few people understand
why advisory is a necessary part of a middle school. We teach on teams,
but there is little "teaming" going on. But, there is little priority
for teaching teachers.
Mary Anne
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Deborah Bambino" <dbambino@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] What About The "How"?
Hayes Mizell raises questions of scale which are unavoidable when we talk
about all kids. If we are not just interested in some sort of "experiment"
or pilot project with a necessarily limited effect we need to look at this
situation on a large scale.
My way of dealing with this tension is to engage in the schools where I'm
connected and to engage in public, national work like this list, CES( Coalition
of Essential Schools), NMSA and the NSRF (National School Reform Faculty).
In addition, I write letters to the editor and attend rallies etc. in Phila.
Deb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Anne Jolly" <jolly61@home.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] What About The "How"?
I understand Hayes' feeling of discouragement. The real issue here is "How
do we change the status quo?" It's formidable. When one school makes
strides, the system soon sucks it back into the fold. It's not a planned
thing - it's just that everything automatically operates to maintain the
way we've always done things in schools. The status quo has a mind of its
own.
So, how do we make changes on a large scale? In today's society, change
usually revolves around immediately discernable results and return on investment.
That doesn't happen with kids and learning. Results and ROI take time. So,
we keep trying new things and backing off of things that don't produce those
results. I think the only way we'll get long-term change is to stick with
something consistently over the long term. Emphasis on the word "consistent."
We have to insulate our middle schools from political whims and new fads,
implement good research, and stick with it over the long haul.
I'd like to suggest that we haven't actually had middle school reform for
a 30 year period. We've had a process and information for 30 years, but
the middle school concept was definitely not consistently in place. In my
school system, which has 17 middle schools, we just began a "model
middle school" process 6 years ago. We didn't start it for the right
reasons - we were having hard discipline problems in middle schools and
this was a way to keep kids under tighter teacher control and out of the
halls. Yet even then - even without adequate training, follow-up, and the
amount of planning time recommended - the middle school process was working
to improve things for teachers and students. Teachers were slowly learning
to collaborate and look at student needs. Discipline problems decreased.
But except for norm referenced test scores, we had no way to look at student
progress. Because we didn't see the ROI in that five year period, and because
the new superintendent needed money for early childhood, the model middle
school program was defunded. Similar things are happening all over the nation,
I suspect.
I'm not satisfied with changing just one middle school at a time, but it's
better than no middle schools. (Remember the starfish tale - it'll make
a difference for at least that school.)
How do we institutionalize the middle school concept so that it becomes
part of our educational culture in this nation? I wonder - is there some
way to legislate stability? Can we insist that middle schools be given 5
years to show results in student achievement, and can we use performance-based
measures to do that? Can we have one year to show results on school organization
and 2 years to show results in teacher instructional practices ? Can we
insist that teachers responsibilities encompass instructional responsiblities
only, and that managerial, record-keeping, clerical, and money-collecting-and-counting
work be assigned to other school personnel?
I think that the change will happen when teachers - those who actually produce
the "ROI" with regard to students - are freely enabled to do the
jobs most of them committed their lives to do - focus on instruction and
students. I believe that, with knowledge, enablement, and sustained support,
teachers can make it happen.
Anne
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Norton <jcroftn1@mindspring.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Update posted - very impressive!
As one of our Booklist members wrote me this morning: "I am floored
by the conversation taking place on the booklist...very profound stuff!"
We'll continue through noon on Saturday, for those who can stick around.
John
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Norton <jcroftn1@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [MWbooklist] The single solution
BILL WROTE:
is there a single approach which is capable of succeeding for all kids?
Can such a thing even exist? Does working toward our idealized middle school
model mean we'll be leaving some kids out on the way? Yes, it's better for
more kids than what we're doing now. But *all* kids?
HAYES WROTE:
But even if we agree on what middle schools, reinvented or not, should "look
like," how do we bring them to fruition on a large scale? In terms
of broad institutional implementation, how do we achieve the student results
we want? Unless we are satisfied with "changing one school at a time,"
it seems that the middle school "movement's" communication, advocacy,
and evidence is wholly inadequate to the challenge.
DEB WROTE:
I think we're seeing a disconnect between teaching and learning because
we keep trying to "efficiently" handle education on a massive
scale when learning is profoundly individual, but social, if that makes
sense. I'm thinking about my early childhood training about parallel play.
I think students need opportunities to learn alone and in all different
types and sizes of groups, maybe in the same day, depending on their needs.
Can we deliver this type of experience on a grand scale and meet the needs
of "all" our students? I believe we can, but won't, until the
platitudes about "children are our future" and "it takes
a village..." etc. are translated to include all kids and not just
the ones we look like or who have money.
Bill asks if there is a single approach to succeeding for (with?) all kids.
If Bill is thinking of a teaching strategy, etc. the clear answer is no.
But if we think about it more systemically, then I think there's a "Yes"
answer -- and it's pretty well expressed in the National Staff Development
Council's standards for professional development:
http://www.nsdc.org/standards.htm
(the work on these standards, by the way, was supported by Hayes' foundation)
The "single approach," to me, is what is rapidly becoming a cliche
but important nonetheless -- creating professional learning communities
in every school. One NSDC article I read today refers to the work of Peter
Senge (The Fifth Discipline), who writes: "team learning is vital because
teams, not individuals,are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations.
This is where 'the rubber meets the road'; unless teams can learn, the organization
cannot learn. When teams are truly learning, not only are they producing
extraordinary results, but the individual members are growing more rapidly
than could have occurred otherwise."
A tall order, to be sure. But not a "packaged" solution, a one-size-fits-all
reform. Instead, we work to create cultures within schools that have the
desire, skill, time and focus (standards) to find the solutions to their
own problems and for their own kids.
This is the work that Deb and Anne Jolly and Marsha and so many others in
our own cyber-family are doing through learning teams, coaching, and with
groups like the National School Reform Faculty. I don't know how we get
THIS to scale, but it's the most worthy pursuit I know of.
John
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Keith Mack" <kmack@mackzone.com>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] New question for the List...
I would have to agree that professional development is partly the answer.
Doing this for a living now, I conduct needs assessments, write proposals,
and conduct some of the training. I know this list has gone over an over
how professional development can create positive change, however the two
models that we frequently see are entire staff for sit and get or one staff
member going off site to a class or conference.
Mary Anne's committed team in Germany attending a training academy was a
better choice. I think it's Marsha on our list who is be the professional
development and team coach for her school. This seems to be a model worth
looking at, but how many schools (especially small school districts) can
afford this practice? We all know the research about PD being ongoing, job
embedded, just in time...yet most schools do not/cannot implement this model.
In addition to the "committed team" there has to be someone who
facilitates, helps, and holds the light up. Thankfully we have a number
of principals that do this. I wonder though if this type of principal is
a growing exception?
Maybe the model of "top down" school administration should change
as well. Instead of that old fashioned "hierarchy" approach, perhaps
schools should be run by a team or network? There could be one person who
manages financials, another community relations, and then add in a student
"esprit d'corps" manager (ahem discipline?) and of course professional
development (would you include a parent or two on this team?). Obviously,
this isn't about to happen, but in a small school (like Bill's) all these
positions could/should also teach within a team for part of the day or week.
Right now we look at school leadership to be one person. I think if we look
at the success that middle schools (or any school) have had it's been because
of the small group that formed the committed team (or "committed sardines"
http://www.thecommittedsardine.net/what.html ). That principal that became
the visionary would have floundered without some team buy-in.
Of course most of us have experienced the opposite when the new principal
shows up and wants to be "in control" and we see arrested development
and even backsliding. If our school was managed by a network, it would be
much more difficult for that one new person to throw water and quench the
fires of passion.
Sometimes I'll hear that change has to come "from the top". I
think the change has be envisioned and facilitated by the top, but the change
generally happens from the grass roots. From my travelings, that successful,
grass roots team is generally made up of experienced teachers (10+ years?)
and very passionate about kids and doing what's best for them.
My wife (a HS teacher - I told her this group could tackle HS problems after
this week???) was moaning how hard it is to find good teachers. Two principals
hired a miserable person who had all the right answers in the interview.
My wife now has to work with this person - the second bad one in two years.
My father (retired HS principal) said he could hire a teacher with one question.
He'd ask in an interview, "What do you really like to teach".
If the answer was English or Algebra the interview was over. The person
that said he/she liked to teach kids was generally offered a job.
Like me and many of you, my wife doesn't have an English degree or even
a minor, yet she successfully teaches Freshman English. Neither does she
have any drama degree or college credits, but her plays and musicals are
sold out wonders and there's a waiting list to get into her drama class.
Successful teachers don't necessarily have know-it-all degrees about a subject.
They have a love and a passion for learning and for kids - so how can we
measure this? Better yet, how can we teach this to prospective teachers?
So, now I'm wondering how to make sense of this disjointed message. It's
hard to read all the great thoughts from this list and then stick to one
idea. My feeling is that the future of all education is based in teams (this
has already been mentioned by others), yet the consistent model is the teacher
in isolation. When I left my job last year, the principal decided who to
interview and who to hire (and it wasn't my wife because she didn't have
an English or SS endorsement). The team I left now has to work daily with
this "new Mr. Mack", yet was never involved in the hiring process.
When I go back and visit I see more isolation in the team, because it's
just easier to do with the new person and the new schedule that broke up
math/science core.
A committed team that is empowered to make decisions - yes right ones and
wrong ones (failure is OK if we learn) - holds the key for whether the school
development is steadfast or arrested. A wise leader takes advantage of this
team. The unwise administrator tries to control and dictate, and then how
do teachers best survive? Historically teachers have survived and even thrived
on their own because it's calm and safe water to travel on.
Keith Mack
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle" <mpedigo@Barren.k12.ky.us>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] What About The "How"?
Hayes, thank you for keeping us on our toes and for spurring action. I agree
with Deb and I agree that pre-service instruction must look different. I
agree with you that we must upscale, and go back to principal/supt./leadership
preparation. It has to look different. There is not much there with regard
to this middle school thing.
If a principal understands the concepts and believes they will work for
their kids, it will happen in their school. The same with a superintendent
in the district, so why aren't we focusing more efforts in these areas?
Michelle
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Pedigo, Michelle"
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] Maryann's on to something
John wrote:
Is this exploration of constructivist teaching in the context of standards
and classroom assessment -- alone and in groups -- a necessary first step?
and Deb wrote
My answers are yes and no. And then she eloquently discussed how this step
will lead to side steps.
In addition to this, I'd say that a first step is the recognition that students
learn differently than we did and that as teachers/educators we can no longer
assume that because we tell them, they learn or because we did an activity,
they learn. We must understand that there are multitudes of issues students
bring with them to the classrooms every day, and it is our onerous tasks
to find ways to help each student, systemically, meet the standards.
I really don't think many of us have really internalized that this means
look at students, one child at a time, figuring out what works with that
child, and doing it.
Michelle
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From: "Pedigo, Michelle" <mpedigo@Barren.k12.ky.us>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] The single solution
John wrote, quoting Peter Senge:
"This is where 'the rubber meets the road'; unless teams can learn,
the organization cannot learn. When teams are truly learning, not only are
they producing extraordinary results, but the individual members are growing
more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise."
Thank you John, for referencing us all back to learning communities or communities
of learners. This concept is so valuable because it sets the tone/culture
that EVERYONE, in the building--no matter on which level they are on--is
expected to improve, and the team will help them get there. It supports
high expectations beautifully, as participants begin to "own the problems."
It is ironic, I think, that we are in an organization centered around learning,
and many of our educators don't truly value "life-long learning."
However, when they do catch on to it, there is a kind of synergy that takes
place, and they speak of "reform" taking place within themselves.
Consequently, they and their team grows, and they improve instruction for
kids. It's a great feeling, and yes, John, I believe it works too...as a
matter of fact; you are right, THIS is the first step.
Michelle
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From: "Marsha Ratzel" <marsha_ratzel@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [MWbooklist] Maryann's on to something
Investigating what each child is like takes ongoing, effective formative
assessment strategies. The old theme of starting at the end and working
backwards, I think, fits. We must know what individual needs are and how
to go about explaining in a way that has meaning for that student. But that's
assessment, not curriculum.
Here's what I don't understand from the discussion about how the standards
will stiffle our ability to individualize.... Why would having a standard
to shoot for damage the MS concept? I don't get it. Why wouldn't we think
all our students can get there...some at different paces and in different
ways? I would think the standards are one of things that will unite all
of us across the country, giving us a common vocabulary and set of targets
for which to shoot. It seems to me that somehow the answer to Hayes' question
about how to make this all work on a widespread basis is linked to national
standards.
marsha
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From: "Thomas S. Dickinson" <tsd@mail.ccrtc.com>
Subject: [MWbooklist] Endings
Greetings:
As a final, concluding comment I've included a section from the last chapter
in the book that Deborah and I wrote together, a chapter titled "On
a good day everyone grows: Reflections on the reinvention of a school."
Some of this is in the journal article but I think it's important enough
to repeat here. It's drawn from a section titled "The critical underpinning
of change" (p. 322-324):
"First, our disposition matters. we all need an awareness that the
middle school concept is suffereing from an arrested development stage.
We must acknowledge this. . . The acceptance of this, and developing the
disposition toward continued change and an openness to change, even more
than we already have done, is paramount to a continuing healthy development
of the concept as an educational effort. On top of this, we must allow ourselves
to let go of our own fear of change, and allow those critical shifts in
our development as educators to occur. To accept change will be an aspect
of the future--because stasis is arrested development.
Second, movement toward developing and implementing the concept further
requires the awareness and understanding of the middle school concept as
an ecology of highly complex elements working simultaneously together. .
. This notion of ecology applies to all the components of the middle school
concept as a schooling concept, but this is not all. As a corollary to this,
treating arrested development requires an understanding that the middle
level concept is part of the larger concept of education and schooling in
several ways:
-as a k-16 continuum
-as an important societal institution in this country
-as a part of the larger picture of current educational reform movements
Third, in recent years, the middle school concept, especially through the
promise of a relevant and integrated curriculum component, has been reconceived
as the best hope for realizing a truly Deweyian progressive educational
philosophy. . . As a reformed notion of schooling, the middle school concept
is perceived by many as having the potential to go beyond the rhetoric of
schooling for a democracy and an intelligent democratic citizenry, to become
through the realization of its proposed structures and content, an environment
that supports those ideals."
I hope many of you have an opportunity to read the book--while we have focused
on a number of critical issues here revolving around arrested development
and reinvention, we have only begun to discuss the range of topics that
are addressed in the other chapters in the book, all of which were written
from the perspective of reinventing that particular aspect of the school.
For those of you who have read the entire theme issue of the Middle School
Journal, these articles are a taste, but only a taste of the richness of
the actual chapters.
The chat has been possible because of a number of individuals, all of whom
I need to thank: first and foremost, John Norton; this all started when
I asked John if there was a chance to review the book on the listserv. John,
being John, took that initial query and ran with it. Thank you for making
this possible, including dealing with the meltdown last weekend. I'll march
shoulder-to-shoulder with you anytime.
Second, I'd like to thank my good friend and colleague Tom Erb. Tom, who
edits the Middle School Journal, granted permission for us to post the article
and even sent John a pdf version to facilitate things. Tom also deserves
credit for even printing the theme issue, especially with my criticism of
the National Middle School Association. He took his undeserved share of
lumps for doing that and I am most grateful for his stand.
Third, to all of you who have participated in the discussion, thank you,
even for those of you lurking. It has been an interesting time. I have been
moved by your passion and insight, humbled by the situations that many of
you have to deal with daily, and inspired by your committment to youth,
the concept, the school, and change.
That having been said, the discussion has also been profoundly disturbing
on a larger stage and this emotion is one that I have been struggling with,
sometimes positively but more often unsuccessfully, over the last three
years. I mean that as no criticism to any of you or this discussion; in
fact, I think this has been in many ways healthy for me personally and professionally.
However, from where I sit things are in a precarious state. That's why I
ventured forth with the arguments in the book. You have given me much to
think about. Thank you.
I hope all of you and your families have a safe and secure holiday season.
Tom
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From: Bill Ivey
RE: Endings
Hi!
And a big "thank you" to Tom, Hayes, John Lounsbury, and everyone
else who participated in this discussion, not to mention John Norton for
putting it together.
For those of us who also belong to MWlist... what next??? Personally, I
believe this discussion will be continuing in many senses, not the least
of which is ideas (some of which may still be forming subconsciously) which
are rolling around in each of our brains.
At the same time, so many of us had such strong things to say about trying
to promote the middle school paradigm that it seems that our cumulative
energy shouldn't just go off in individual directions. Is there a way to
communicate to the entire list what we were lucky enough to take part in?
Is there a way to use MiddleWeb to help build toward that ideal so many
of us want to achieve? And if the answers to these questions are "yes,"
is that something we want and if so how do we go about it?
We have, by my computer clock 12 hours and five minutes left on what will
be for many of us one of the busiest weekends of the year. But I don't dare
leave these questions unasked.
Thanks again to everybody for being part of one of the most rewarding professional
development activities in which I have ever been involved.
Take care,
Bill Ivey
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John Norton wrote:
Well, folks, the hour has come when we said we'd wrap up our conversation
about "Reinventing the Middle School." It was an awesome chat
-- certainly the most powerful one yet, right up there with "I Read
It" and "Mosaic of Thought." Thanks so much to Tom Dickinson
for sticking with us and contributed at an unprecedented level for a "guest."
Since Tom's a member of the MWList, he's not REALLY a guest, but you know
what I mean. Thanks also to Deborah Butler for adding a very thoughtful
message, and to Hayes Mizell for doing what he does best -- prodding and
poking and putting us all on the "hook." You regulars were great.
What a bunch to start the dream charter school with!!
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Bill posed a question or some "food for thought" in the very last
message posted to the List. As we all rushed about getting ready for the
holiday, we did not offer any responses. So I'd like to suggest that we
leave the list open in case someone wants to take up Bill's gauntlet.
I'll take up one part of Bill's query. He wrote: "Is there a way to
communicate to the entire list what we were lucky enough to take part in?"
It might be possible to take the conversation archive and create a much
shorter document with key highlights and comments. It would take some work,
however. Any volunteers? Perhaps we could dip into the MiddleWeb vault and
offer a fee to someone to do this?
If you think you might be interested, write me at:
norton@middleweb.com
Any other thoughts about Bill's query?
John
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