Previous "Quotes of the Month"
September 2001
"In the long run, how hard schools try, how elegantly they are structured
or restructured, matters not at all. What matters is the experience of the
student. To say that a school is wonderful but the students aren't learning
what they should learn is obviously silly. But why, then, the enduring phrase
-- and philosophy -- of school reform?
"Stop trying to make schools great schools and take up the task of
trying to make teachers great teachers. Never in my life have I heard a
friend or colleague say, 'That school changed my life.' Hundreds of times
I have heard people I respect say, 'That teacher changed my life.' And it
goes
without saying that great teachers are doubly precious in lousy schools.
So let us work at .. helping teachers teach better, and let us succeed at
that task before we take up the next one."
"The
End of School Reform" by Peter Temes, Education Week, April
4, 2001
(as seen in NSDC's Journal
of Staff Development, Summer 2001)
August 2001
"...Left to themselves, many middle level schools will not improve
significantly. Every year, every day, there are hundreds of thousands of
young adolescents who are attending schools that do not provide the educational
opportunities the students deserve and need. Most of these students have
no advocates. Many of their parents are burdened, or distracted, or simply
do not know how to begin to advocate for the reforms necessary for their
children to participate in more engaging, meaningful, and challenging academic
work.
"The officials in charge of the schools, particularly the school boards
and superintendents, continue to rationalize their neglect of the middle
grades by believing that if they can only get students to read proficiently
by the end of the third grade, then challenges at the middle level will
diminish. In doing so, they turn a blind eye to the developmental realities
and the intellectual appetites of young adolescents, choosing to believe
that these students need little more than a firm hand and a kind heart."
-- M. Hayes Mizell, Director
Program for Student Achievement
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
"Who Will Advocate for Middle School Reform?".
July 2001
"...I believe that high-stakes testing, in its current manifestation,
is a serious threat to excellence and national standards. Unchecked, it
will choke the life out of many excellent schools and drive gifted teachers
out of classrooms. Unchecked, it will lead to debased and unnecessarily
low standards.
"...A more rational approach is broad-based assessment, which involves
multiple measures of what a student has learned. Assessment relies on teacher-made
tests, teacher evaluations, student demonstrations, etc. all over an extended
period of time, instead of one score on a single, largely machine-scored
tests (even if it includes a writing test). Unfortunately, the supporters
of high-stakes testing have more faith in machines than they do in teachers."
-- John Merrow
Choosing Excellence
(Scarecrow Education, 2001)
John Merrow is the host and executive producer of The Merrow Report,
on both PBS and NPR.
June 2001
"Isn't it ironic that at the age our students MOST need the adults
in their lives to be closely involved that this seems to be the time that
parents seem to pull away?
"Teachers and parents begin to view them as able to handle more and
more responsibility without guidance from us, yet I have seen that to be
so untrue. Many of my students go to great lengths to hide the fact that
they are drowning academically, socially, etc. until they fail miserably."
-- St. Louis teacher and MiddleWeb listserv member Ellen Berg,
chatting about the need for "hovering"
in the middle grades
May 2001
"I started to 'fake-read' in sixth grade and continued to do so for
the next twenty years....I read aloud beautifully and could decode even
the most difficult words. The problem surfaced when I had to use, remember,
or retell what I had read. I could't do it.
"...There are those (teachers) who think good readers are created in
the womb and nurtured on the laps of indulgent mothers who read nightly
to their natural born readers. I once heard a middle school language arts
teacher complain that she was sick and tired of trying to teach kids how
to read. She hated the cliché that all teachers are teachers of
reading. She grumbled that it was ridiculous to expect secondary teachers
to teach reading when they had so much content to cover.
"...I knew from personal experience that she was wrong. I thought about
my own journey as a reader. I didn't really learn how to rad until I was
in my thirties. If it hadn't been too late for me to become a good reader,
it certainly wasn't too late for (a secondary student)."
-- Cris Tovani
"I Read It, But I Didn't
Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers"
Stenhouse Publishers (2000)
April 2001
"(W)e need principals who want to be leaders of communities of inquiry
within their
schools. What would this look like? Probably like the schools that Roland
S. Barth describes
in Improving Schools From Within, where his preferred professional-development
model
included encouraging teachers to pose good questions about the teaching
and learning
processes within their classrooms. Inquiry can then proceed by using study
groups similar to
those supported by university teacher colleges, in networks of regional
schools and through
professional-development schools."
-- John Barell
"Inquisitive
Minds"
Education Week, March 14, 2001
March 2001
"In contrast to the way that standardized, norm-referenced, multiple-choice
tests influence teaching to emphasize content coverage, fact recall, and
rote performance of skills, there is another way to think about curriculum,
instruction, and assessment. This way views the goals and purposes of learning
as developing abilities to use critical skills and information in order
to 'have wonderful ideas.'
..."A critical part of this approach to teaching and learning is ongoing
assessment by the teacher. It provides important information about what
each learner does and how he does it so that the teacher can know what strategies
and approaches to use to be effective. It offers insights to the learner's
way of thinking, why he makes mistakes that he does, what strengths the
learner relies on in order to succeed, and what areas need strengthening
in order to improve."
-- Beverly Falk
The
Heart of the Matter: Using Standards and Assessments to Learn
February 2001
"It is of utmost importance that we recognize and nurture all of the
varied human intelligences, and all of the combinations of intelligences.
We are all so different largely because we all have different combinations
of intelligences. If we recognize this, I think we will have a least a better
chance of dealing appropriately with the many problems that we face in the
world.
"If we can mobilize the spectrum of human abilities, not only will
people feel better about themselves and more competent; it is even possible
that they will also feel more engaged and better able to join the rest of
the world community in working for the broader good. Perhaps if we can mobilize
the full range of human intelligences and ally them to an ethical sense,
we can help to increase the likelihood of our survival on this planet, and
perhaps even contribute to our thriving."
-- Howard Gardner
Mulitiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice
See
this recent news story about Howard Gardner
December 2000 / January 2001
"Improvement in student performance across all groups requires a relentless
focus on the heart of schooling, that is, on teaching and learning.
"We now recommend teaching a (middle grades) curriculum grounded in
rigorous, public academic standards revelant to the concerns of adolescents,
and based on how students learn best. A standards-based curriculum provides
the opportunity for every young adolescent to learn to use his or her mind
well -- to think creatively; to solve complex, meaningful problems; and
to develop the base of factual knowledge and skills needed for these higher
order capacities."
-- Gayle A. Davis and Anthony W. Jackson
Turning Points 2000: Preparing American
Youth for the 21st Century
November 2000
"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural
curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards."
-- Anatole France
September/October 2000
(worth two months!)
"In which type of schools is social support strongly associated with
student learning? Our findings here are clear. In schools with a strong
press toward academics, students who experience high levels of support learn
quite a lot. In schools where the academic press is low, even students with
high levels of social support do not learn. And for students who do not
have much social support to draw on, attending a school with high levels
of academic press does not help them learn."
from
Social Support and Achievement for Young Adolescents in Chicago:
The Role of School Academic Press
by Valerie E. Lee and Julia B. Smith
American Educational Research Journal (Winter 1999)
See the report that provided the basis for this article:
"Social
Support, Academic Press, and Student Achievement:
A View from the Middle Grades in Chicago"
(Adobe Acrobat/PDF file)
August 2000
"Why is it so important to foster support and success for first-year
teachers? Because dissatisfied first-year teachers are exiting the profession
in record numbers, costing taxpayers money for retraining and leaving a
significant portion of the teaching force with little professional experience.
The exodus takes perhaps its greatest toll on students, whose productivity
is affected by the high turnover and unstable educational programs that
are often the result."
Survival Guide for New Teachers
U.S. Department of Education
May 2000
July 2000
"You can't get too cocky. You've got to continue looking at what you
do with a critical eye. There are days I come home and go, 'I wasn't on
top of things today,' and I get mad at myself. I think you've got to keep
doing that if you don't want to stagnate within the profession.
"My first year of teaching was in an eighth-grade science class. it
was maybe two months into the year that a kid transferred out. He wasn't
doing that badly; he wasn't a bad kid or a troublemaker. When I asked him
why he was leaving -- and I made the mistake of doing this in front of all
the kids -- he said, 'I'm going to a class where I can learn something.'
"I remember the kids in that room turning and looking at my reaction.
That was the most painful arrow he could have shot at me. I must have looked
really disheartened, because later that day several kids came up to me and
said, 'Don't pay any attention to him. He was angry, and there's something
else going on in his life.' But it was a comment that really stayed with
me. It made me sit down and think, Are these kids learning anything?"
-- Jeff Johnston
Middle grades science teacher
1997 Nevada State Teacher of the Year
in For
the Love of Teaching: And Other Reasons Teachers Do What They Do
Interview Portraits by Ira D. Shull
(Ordering information at this
page. Makes a nice gift.)
June 2000
"Standards-driven instruction simply means teaching and learning based
on students achieving high standards. The single measure of successful instruction
is that students are able to perform at high levels according to rigorous
standards, even though they may reach that end using a wide variety of methods
and time frames.
"First, set high standards that determine what students need to know
and be able to do. Second, do whatever it takes for as long as it takes
to teach all students these standards. Third, measure student achievement
of these standards by having them perform what they have learned and compare
that performance to the standards."
Learning
in Overdrive: Designing Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment from Standards
"A Teacher's Manual"
By Ruth Mitchell, Marilyn Willis, and the Chicago Teacher Union Quest Center
North American Press / Fulcrum Publishing
1995
May 2000
"We have reached a sad state of affairs when educators do the right
thing not because they understand and act on what they know must be done
for their students to perform at higher levels, but because the state establishes
and enforces thresholds of satisfactory performance.
"...These educators would say they want their own children to do their
best and rise to the challenges of life not because the young people should
be afraid of what will happen to them if they do not, but because they have
high expectations for themselves. Yet, when it comes to their professional
lives, many educators settle for less than second best."
--"What If There Were No TAAS?"
M. Hayes Mizell, Program for Student Achievement
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
(Speech to a group of Texas middle school educators - March 30, 2000)
April 2000
"Standards are not the enemy. We're using the state and district standards
to plan our instruction, and it's paid off in terms of making us more focused
on content. We're still as much of a progressive school as we ever were,
but what we did before was much more intuitive. Now, we're thinking more
carefully about how and what we teach."
Yvonne Scott, Teacher
San Francisco Community School
"Let
It Be"
Teacher Magazine, April 2000
March 2000
"Public education cannot serve the needs of future generations unless
the kind of mind we nurture develops our capacity to become more fully human
and sees as its work the creation of a compassionate and sustainable world
that works for everyone.
". . .It is our work, as prophets and pioneers, to create a generative
paradigm of learning that invites not only the fullness of our intellect
but the fullness of our imagination and the fullness of our spirit."
Stephanie Pace Marshall
President of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
"A New Story of Learning
and Schooling"
School Administrator (December 1999
February 2000
"I wanted to convey that unless you project hope for your students,
your efforts to teach
them to read, write, and calculate won't make a profound difference. A teacher's
task is
not only to engage students' imagination but also to convince them that
they are people
of worth who can do something in a very difficult world."
-- Herb Kohl, author of The
Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching (Simon
& Schuster, 1998) in an
interview with Educational Leadership magazine.
January 2000
In 1959, the National Education Association asked governors to predict the
condition of education at the dawn of the 21st Century. Some selected comments
(published in Education
Week):
"Transportation by anti-gravity machine, or a similar device, will
permit students to participate in interplanetary travel, thus making the
Universe the new classroom."
-- Nebraska Gov. Ralph G. Brooks
"School books will be better written and, thus, easier to understand."
-- Washington Gov. Albert D. Rosellini
"In many respects, the learner of the future will be his own teacher."
-- West Virginia Gov. Cecil Underwood
"There will be increasingly higher standards of selection and training
of teachers, and an increasingly higher standard of service will be rendered
by those on the job."
-- California Gov. Edmund "Pat" Brown
December 1999
"We have a profound moral contract with our students. We insist, under
the law, that they become thoughtful, informed citizens. We must - for their
benefit and ours - model such citizenship. The routines and rituals of a
school teach, and teach especially about matters of character.
"In the end, we teachers and other adults who care about children should
attend to even the humblest of these actions and these dangers, so that
we may teach our students - and ourselves - a worthy way of life."
From The
Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract
By Ted and Nancy Sizer
Story
in Christian Science Monitor
November 1999
"A successful teacher needs: the education of a college president,
the executive ability of a financier, the humility of a deacon, the adaptability
of a chameleon, the hope of an optimist, the courage of a hero, the wisdom
of a serpent, the gentleness of a dove, the patience of Job, the grace of
God, and the persistence of the Devil."
-- Submitted by a teacher who did not know the source.
(If you know, please share!)
October 1999
"Mention of urban middle schools prompts an instant image of places
where most of us would rather not be. Unsettling, weary on the psyche, frustrating,
with a scarcity of joy and a surplus of problems, often in bleak surroundings
-- these are the perceptions of schools full of some of the neediest youngsters
in our country.
"We miss so much by thinking this way . . ."
-- Anne C. Lewis
"Figuring It Out: Standards-Based Reforms in
Urban Middle Grades"
August 1999
September 1999
An achieving middle school "is a school whose mission, ethos, culture,
structure, organization, curriculum, co-curriculum, and instruction is explicitly
dedicated to the achievement of every student and every adult in the building.
It is a school where from the time a visitor walks in the front door there
is no doubt that the school's focus is on advancing the achievement of every
student and every adult. It is not a school where the administrators and
teachers assume they know all they need to know and that their work is limited
to imparting their knowledge to students. In the achieving middle school
the administrators, teachers, and students understand that they all have
something to teach and a lot to learn. This belief is stated and restated,
and it is a fundamental operating principle of the school."
-- Hayes Mizell, Program for Student Achievement
Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
"Six Steps to an Achieving Middle School"
June 1999
August 1999
". . .(H)igh-level learning for all students is a low priority in many
middle grades schools. There is little agreement about what we should teach
in the middle grades, when we should teach it, and how high we should set
academic standards. Couple this lack of focus with an assessment process
that does not measure student progress against predictors of success in
high school - or relies on broad, ambiguous "standards" that offer
teachers no clear direction - and you have a recipe for lagging achievement."
-- Southern Regional Education Board
"Leading
the Way: State Actions to Improve Student Achievement in the Middle Grades"
May 1999
July 1999
Why Haven't Schools Changed?
"It isn't because we haven't tried. We've tried a hundred things. Here
are a few: the Palmer method, phonics, teaching machines, psychological
testing, audio-visual . . . techniques, open schools, open classrooms, team
teaching, teacher aids, social promotion, the New Math, the New Sciences,
languages in the early grades, tracking, homogeneous grouping, inquiry learning,
behavior modification, rewards and punishment, systems analysis, grades,
competition and . . . behavioral objectives, competency based instruction,
"back to basics," computer technology, and voucher systems. Each
of these, in its time, was enthusiastically advanced as a solution to education's
major ills. As it became evident that it, too, was as disappointing as its
predecessors it was soon laid aside. Changing public education is like punching
a pillow or, as someone has suggested, 'Like moving a cemetery; after you've
done all the work, you still have a cemetery.' "
-- Arthur Combs
Cited in Education
on the Edge of Possibility
June 1999
"To combat the problems that plague teacher learning, we need a comprehensive
agenda for supporting emerging teachers and for extending a range of professional
responsibilities--enough to keep the very best teachers engaged in an interesting,
stimulating, growth-oriented profession."
-- Teacher researcher Patricia Wasley
"Teaching
Worth Celebrating"
Educational Leadership (May 1999)
May 1999
"What teachers know about the subjects they teach and the latest methods
for teaching those subjects is crucial to high levels of student learning.
(School boards and superintendents should)...embed opportunities for professional
learning in the daily schedule of teachers. The National
Staff Development Council advocates that at least 25 percent of teachers'
time be devoted to their own learning and to collaboration with colleagues.
Organize teachers' schedules so teams of teachers who share responsibility
for the learning of all their students can meet regularly to plan lessons,
critique students' work, and solve common problems of teaching."
-- Dennis Sparks, executive director
National Staff Development Council
"Results"
(April 1999)
April 1999
"The trouble is that politicians and school administrators are going
about the business of improving things exactly backwards. The head of the
Virginia School BoardsAssociation hit the mark when he said: 'The state
insisted on testing first, training teachers second, and purchasing new
books and teaching materials third, which is the exact opposite of what
we need to do.'
"No sensible corporation would revolutionize its product line this
way. Of course, corporations must know where the bar for beating the competition
is set. The next logical steps are to design prototypes, retool plants and
manufacturing procedures, transform the work culture, retrain workers, and
exhaustively test new products, all this before mass-producing the new products
for the market.
"Fairness dictates that the standards movement also proceed sensibly,
not recklessly."
-- Hugh B. Price, President
National Urban League
"Establish an
Academic Bill of Rights," Education Week, 3/17/99
March 1999
"A growing number of school districts are throwing a warm body into
the classroom, closing the door, and hoping for the best. This is not the
way to reach high standards."
-- Richard Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education
[See text of complete speech -- http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/02-1999/990216.html]
February 1999
"Schools simply are not reaching out aggressively to parents to engage
them in understanding what their children should know and be able to do,
and how parents can help.
"It is a very hard job, and every principal and teacher has had negative
experiences in dealing with families; but this is only one barrier to effective
engagement. It also seems there are simply too many standards and as a result,
both families and teachers are overwhelmed. In addition, the standards are
written in language that families cannot understand. The net effect is that
in many cases it is less rather than more clear to parents exactly what
their children should be learning."
--Hayes Mizell, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
in "Ink," an
NASSP newsletter on standards-based middle grades reform
January 1999
"Educators often complain that the public doesn't understand how schools
really are doing and that parents and taxpayers get a distorted view from
the media. Report cards on schools represent a significant opportunity for
educators to communicate directly with their key constituents about how
schools are performing.
. . .(E)ducation leaders and policymakers need to understand that what they
want to tell the public in these accountability reports is not necessarily
what the public wants to know. That's a central finding of the research."
-- from "Ten
Recommendations For Reporting School Results To the Public"
by A-Plus Communications (published in Education Week's "Quality Counts
1999"
December 1998
"Because students' intellectual activity should be the focus of the
school,
teachers need to become skilled in inventing work for students with which
the students will engage. Put simply, students do not learn from work they
do not do.
"We must remember, however, that engagement is not all there is to
it. Good
school work is engaging school work, but not all engaging school work is
good school work. Good school work is sufficiently compelling that
students persist with it when they have difficulty, and they find satisfaction
in it when it is done. Moreover, the effort expended results in students
learning those things their parents, the larger community, and the society
at
large believe should be learned.
"Perhaps the most important understanding here is that students are
volunteers, whether we want them to be or not. Their attendance can be
commanded, but their attention must be earned. Their compliance can be
insisted on, but their commitment is under their own control.
Phil Schlechty
President and CEO of the Center for Leadership in School Reform
Louisville, Kentucky.
-- from an interview
in the Summer 1998 "Journal of Staff Development"
November 1998
"Accountability remains the most elusive component of standards-driven
reform. The adults in the system scorn it, students generally favor it,
political and business leaders support it, as do parents until it appears
that it will affect their children.
In some states and districts, standards have become the surrogate battlefield
upon which power battles are waged that have little to do with standards,
such as who will exercise control over the education system. Combatants
may include boards, unions, central offices, special commissions, governors,
and state legislatures."
Christopher Cross, President
Council for Basic Education
in "The Standards
Wars: Some Lessons Learned" (Education Week, 10/21/98)
October 1998
"The level of commitment needed to ask educators to give up those things
with which they are comfortable, or that have served them well in the past,
requires passion, hard work and a focus on the future. In our zest to move
leaders to think differently about their roles and responsibilities, we
must be ever mindful of the time and assistance that is needed to support
and sustain even small accomplishments that focus on the 'right stuff' --
improving the performance of every student in our schools."
Bobbi Vogel
Center for Leadership in School Reform
Louisville, KY
September 1998
"In our report 'Facing the Consequences' we show that American students
at grades 3, 4, 7 and 8 do average or abovaverage compared to other countries
in the mathematics topics defining what we call basics. In other words,
we surely could do better in the basics, but this is not our weakest area.
In fact, it is far from our weakest area.
I think the drop from fourth to eighth grade has more to do with the nature
of the middle school curriculum than it does with the departmental structure
of schools. We have found the middle school curriculum to be unfocused,
highly repetitive and non-demanding compared to those of other countries....
Our middle school children receive little intellectual challenge compared
to other countries. This definitely has something to do with their performance
in high school.
William Schmidt
Director of the TIMSS study
on the Education Writers Association listserve
August 1998
"School is not about what tools you are going to use -- cooperative
learning, whole language, whatever. The enduring crisis is that we have
children who come to us who are fantastically needy. School has to be something
different for them, an alternative to what they come from.
"Part of what has to be done is a different kind of training for the
people who sit in a principal's chair. It cannot just be a lot of talk about
theory. It has to be about the concrete steps that will boost student achievement
and give these kids the ability to kill any test put in front of them."
--Lorraine Moore, Director
School Leadership Academy
Center for Educational
Innovation at the Manhattan Institute
July 1998
"A psychotherapist named Jennie Holt instills humor on school campuses.
She recently met with the elementary teachers at Chantilly School in Charlotte,
NC, who were in the process of reshaping their curriculum, finding ways
to reach kids at different skill levels and from different cultural backgrounds.
"Dr. Holt discovered quickly that these teachers were completely stressed
out. There was no laughter on the staff; just difficult, serious, hard work.
Her mission was to lighten things up around the place; get them laughing,
joking, telling funny stories. She told them to clip jokes from magazines
or comics from the newspaper and pin them up on the bulletin board. She
encouraged them to look for things to laugh about and to share the laughter
with each other."
Jack Warner and Clyde Bryan
The
Unauthorized Teacher's Survival Guide
Park Avenue (1995)
MiddleWeb humor
June 1998
"I have a great optimism for urban schools. If standards are truly
adopted and become the basis of all learning, the dream of all students
learning can become a reality. No longer will good instruction be the exception;
it will be the expectation for all classrooms. Good teachers will no longer
feel isolated, for schools will have a common thrust... administrators and
teachers will have the responsibility of assuring that schools are, first
and above all, places to learn....students will understand that they, too,
must take the responsibility for their learning....parents will have to
become vigilant of their children's progress, letting them know that they
are expected to learn and achieve.
"For too long, urban schools seem to have been paralyzed by the larger
problems of society. For too long, we have been playing the futile game
of who is to blame -- fettering away precious time. We need to move beyond
the negatives, realizing that we are in control of our lives and our schools....
We have to stay focused on our students and their achievement."
--Beverly Bimes Michalak
"Teaching for Achievement in Urban Middle Schools" (Clark Publishing,
1998)
May 1998
According to researchers, two important perspectives on school
effectiveness are the communitarian model and the academic press
model. The communitarian model is based on the premise that teachers'
and students' commitment are central to learning and that that
commitment is based on interpersonal relationships, involvement in
decision making, and other methods of satisfying social and emotional
needs. In contrast, the academic press model favors high
expectations and demanding curricula.
In a study of students from 23 middle schools that served a
predominantly middle-class African-American community, Meredith
Phillips, a research fellow at Harvard University, found that academic
press was more effective than communal organization in promoting
mathematics achievement and student attendance. "These findings
suggest," she concluded, "that teachers in some schools may be
more
concerned with maintaining affective relations with students than with
imparting skills. . . . The results in this article suggest that improving
a
school's academic climate may be a more promising way to enhance
students' attachment to school and their academic achievement."
Source: Meredith Phillips, "What Makes Schools Effective? A
Comparison of the Relationships of Communitarian Climate and Academic
Climate to Mathematics Achievement and Attendance During Middle
School," American Educational Research Journal, Winter 1997.
April 1998
"It's very interesting to look at how they try to improve teaching
in Japan. The Japanese have an entire research and development system for
the gradual, constant improvement of teaching. Their teaching style has
gradually evolved over the past fifty years. Their approach to improving
teaching isn't indirect; they don't believe that publishing a book that
says 'teach this way,' or reducing class size, or bringing computers into
every classroom is going to materially improve the quality of teaching in
the classroom. They look at teaching itself, examine it and constantly try
to improve it."
Dr. James Stigler
University of California at Los Angeles
Director of the TIMSS video studies
Quoted from: "Lessons in Perspective: How
Culture Shapes Math Instruction in Japan, Germany and the United States"
March 1998
"I don't like the word 'remediation'. I believe that it is a very negative
way to talk about kids who learn in different ways, kids who respond to
'hands-on', kids who carry pictures of their cars in their billfolds, kids
who can maybe wire a house but can't read what we have prescribed and kids
who need us to meet them where they really are. I believe that a lot of
these kids are kids we have missed because we resist that meeting."
Mary Beth Blegan
1995-96 National Teacher of the Year
(from the National Teacher Forum listserve)
February 1998
"We expect children to leave school with a high degree of literacy
and
equipped with higher-order thinking skills. We want them ready to assume
their roles as citizens in an ever-more complex world and as workers adept
in the use of computers and other advanced technology. None of this will
be
possible -- despite the best intentions of the school reform movement --
unless we invest wisely in helping our children's teachers develop the
knowledge, skills, and judgment this work requires.
"Early evidence from successful programs demonstrates that teachers
benefit
when they get together with colleagues to examine student work, discuss
methods that support student learning, and design appropriate solutions
for
the problems of the classroom. Second, professional development tends to
be
effective when its content focuses not on isolated skills, practices --
or
'tricks of the trade' -- but on helping teachers understand the connections
between what they do in the classroom and what children learn."
--Dr. Judith Warren Little, professor in the Graduate School of Education
at University of
California, Berkeley, in a recent publication of the De Witt Wallace-Reader's
Digest Fund.
Read more about the examination of student work
January 1998
"We won't grow as teachers until we learn where our kids are coming
from. I grew up in a small company town where the company took care of us.
No one got divorced. Most kids went to college, and there were absolutely
no dropouts. I now teach in a multi-racial urban school. My students live
in a world that is light years away from what I knew. I love them dearly,
but had some wise and experienced teachers and students 12 years ago not
shared with me some of the differences, I would have been a disaster and
not survived.
"I still wish these kids had the world I lived in. I demand that they
use correct English, be honest, work hard, and all those things that I believe
they will need to be a productive adult. At the same time I will talk honestly
with the kids about drugs, pregnancy, & consequences. I do things with
these kids that the principal and superintendent of my childhood would never
dream, but that is what it takes to be an effective teacher today."
-- A teacher in Amarillo, Texas
December 1997
We are frankly concerned that, despite their heavy investment in middle-grades
reform, many schools have not progressed beyond the stage of changing climate.
We have not seen the widespread dramatic improvement in academic outcomes
we had hoped for. A variety of state, national, and international studies
in reading, mathematics, and science confirm that the middle grades are
characterized by academic stagnation and actual loss among schools serving
children in poverty.
For several years, large numbers of middle-level schools have been "poised"
for reform, but many have not moved off this plateau and taken the critical
next step to develop students who perform well academically, with the intellectual
wherewithal to improve their life conditions.
We know, however, that when schools and school districts take that next
step, they succeed. . . .
-- from "Speaking with One Voice: A Manifesto for Middle-Grades Reform,"
a position statement by four leading advocates of middle school reform,
published in the March 1997 issue of Phi Delta KAPPAN magazine. Read
how they succeed by viewing the entire document.
November 1997
"At first, and this is predictable I think, the conversations were
fairly safe. 'What was your objective? What did you want your students to
know?' It was nice and comfortable conversation. Then we started asking
more pointed questions, like whether there was rigor in the lesson -- whether
kids were likely to meet standards. The questions became more profound as
we went along."
-- Dr. Linda Whitney, a member of the education faculty at the California
State University at Long Beach and a member of a middle school team examining
student work. Read the whole story.
October 1997
"The New York Times science pages recently told the story of the heart
surgeons in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont -- there are only 23 in all
-- who agreed in 1993 to observe each other regularly in the operating room
and share their know-how, insights, and approaches.
"In the two years after their nine-month project, the death rate among
their patients fell by an astonishing 25 percent. Merely by emphasizing
teamwork and communication instead of functioning like solitary craftsmen,
the study showed, all the doctors brought about major changes in their individual
and institutional practices.
"For teachers who, like heart surgeons, have traditionally worked as
isolated professionals, the experiment holds a powerful lesson. If their
goal is to lower the "death rate" of young minds and see them
thrive, many educators now emphatically believe, they can do it better together
than by working alone."
From Horace , the newsletter of the Coalition
of Essential Schools (Vol. 13, No. 2, November 1996)
September 1997
"Another finding of this research that was somewhat unexpected was
the fact that neither collegial leadership nor the influence of the principal
had an independent effect on student achievement. Collegial leadership that
is friendly, supportive, egalitarian, and open is important in setting a
healthy [middle school] environment, but it is not sufficient for student
achievement.
"Likewise, having influence with superiors will do little to improve
teaching and learning unless it is connected to efforts in the classroom.
The principal is, after all, one step removed from teaching; hence, the
principal's influence on student learning is indirect at best.
"Those facets of organizational health that directly affect the classroom
-- Teacher Affiliation, Resource Support, Academic Emphasis -- made independent
contributions to the achievement of students. Ultimately, however, only
teachers improve instruction; they have to decide they want to improve before
it will happen. If the leadership of the principal is to have any impact
on student achievement, it needs to be linked to substantive activities
in the classroom that make a difference in teaching and learning."
"Middle School Climate: An Empirical Assessment of Organizational Health
and Student Achievement" by Wayne K. Hoy (The Ohio State University),
John W. Hannum (Halsted Middle School), and Dennis Sabo (Auburn University)
August 1997
"I think that in the absence of compelling models of how things could
be different and incentives for people to want to be different, it's much
easier for people to just stay with what they've been doing. Until you have
a situation in which people really feel that they want to do things differently,
that they'll be rewarded for doing that, that the country cares, that the
"stakeholders" care, I think it's going to continue to be an uphill
battle. "
--Researcher Howard Gardner,
Included in a
compilation of remarks
excerpted from a series of professional development videotapes
July 1997
"Rigorous new standards for students, which provide educators with
much clearer goals, are giving schools a fresh impetus for reorganizing
their time and resources."
from the Education Week story (June 25)
"Schools Take
Fresh Look at Bolstering Teachers"
--Part of the What Matters Most series
June 1997
I've been teaching since 1965, and I find that my teaching has evolved greatly
over time because I work on it and, in the past decade or so, the process
of change has accelerated if anything.
How, I wonder, would we feel if our cardiologist said, "The older I
get, the more respect I have for colleagues who have the sense to resist
new things"? I wouldn't feel so hot myself. I'd look for another cardiologist.
If we teachers are a profession -- and I believe that we are -- there is
a common body of specialized knowledge which, in a very real sense, defines
us. That knowledge constantly renews itself, affirming sound theory and
practice from the past, finding better ways to accomplish certain things
in the future, and so on.
I also believe that skillful teaching is an art and, therefore, given to
idiosyncracies which define the personalities or styles of those who teach.
Not all the new (or old) stuff is good for all the teachers, but the artistic
professional is one who, given a solid theoretical foundation, knows well
both the old and new and grows toward better practice through careful innovation
in her own terms.
- 30-year middle school teacher on the Middle-L listserve,
as part of a discussion about teacher resistance to new trends.
May 1997
"Who (teachers) are matters to our teaching every bit as much as what
we teach and how we choose to teach it. In fact, our characters and personalities
determine the qulaity and effectiveness of our teaching long before we know
and how we present it even come into play.
". . . It is the qualities of our selves and characters that are immediately
on display when we try to instruct other people . . . and it is these qualities,
as much as our knowledge and techniques, that are likely to count in determining
our effectiveness with any students."
-from "The 'Who' of Teaching," commentary in Education
Week (4/16/97)
By James M. Banner Jr. and Harold C. Cannon,
authors of the new Yale Press book The Elements of Teaching
April 1997
One of the most realistic pieces of advice I heard regarding "master
teachers" goes like this:
There is no such thing as a 'master teacher.'
All teachers experience 'masterful moments.'
The best teachers pay attention to these moments,
and make them happen more often.
-Jim Burns
National Middle School Association
writing on the Middle-L listserve
March 1997
"Most reform efforts are too generic and trivial and don't penetrate
the culture of the school enough to make a difference in the classroom.
Evaluations of (even the most touted reform programs) show that only a few
schools have made significant improvements."
--Bill Honig, director of the Center for Systemic School Reform at San Franciso
State University
(quoted in "Idealists
and Cynics: The Micropolitics of Systemic School Reform," The Harvard
Education Letter, July/August 1996.)
February 1997
"In a long teaching career, 33 years, I can't remember a time when
we teachers weren't making comments about 'these kids today.' I've had former
students return commenting about how today's students do things they wouldn't
have dared to do. But it's funny, I remember them doing similar things when
they were in my classes. I say "similar" -- not the same. I'm
not suggesting things aren't more difficult for more students now than in
recent and distant times past. Just that a kid is still a kid, when you
look inside there.
"Most of the same old teacher's tricks still form the core of successful
teaching: talk with them, laugh with them, know them, push them, love them.
Be yourself. And when you've done your best, go home and live your life
so you can come back and do it again tomorrow."
--California middle school science teacher writing on the Internet
January 1997
"Schools have to work better for poor kids who are trying to make something
of their lives. Education's the only hope they have of escaping their dangerous
neighborhoods -- or staying there and making them places you'd want to live
in. If these kids with all their dreams and street wisdom can't get the
education they need to have a decent life, what does that say about us as
a city, as a community, as a nation?"
-- Lynn Rippy , Director of the Louisville
(KY) Youth Alliance and chair of the Louisville Middle School Coalition.
December 1996
"There is a gulf between our children and ourselves that we have created
. . . Our lifestyles don't value schooling. We like education as an idea,
and we slurp up lots of information via the television and the Internet,
but we tend to overlook the long, hard hours of reading, writing and study
that go into academic success. It's unattractive, and even as a teacher,
I think I made it look easier than it really is. We adults are already skilled
at the schooling process and we do make it look easy. Children don't like
the work and do everything they can to dodge it. Maybe we don't know how
to tell them that they have to work at school just as hard as they have
to work at their looks or their sports or anything else that matters."
-- North Carolina middle school teacher writing on the Middle-L listserve
November 1996
"As the middle level school matured, it misplaced its focus on meeting
the needs of early adolescent learners and instead became enveloped by a
shroud of orthodoxy--the need to conform to an established doctrine that
dictated programs, procedures, and organizational structure. . . .
"Middle level education stands at a crossroads. As this century draws
to a close, it can continue to march down the road of orthodoxy, expending
its efforts on reproducing the characteristics of the 'ideal' middle school,
or it can venture down a new road--one that focuses the middle level school
on its rightful role: responsiveness to client needs.
"Greater responsiveness requires both the examination of current practices
and a commitment to modifying and abandoning ineffective practices. Responsive
middle level schools embrace a range of organizational and learning models,
monitor and adjust their programs, and are comfortable challenging the orthodoxy
of the middle level movement."
fromThrough the Looking Glass: The Future of Middle Level Education
-- a paper by Ronald D. Williamson and J. Howard Johnston,
published by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (October
1996)
Read the entire paper
at the NASSP website
October 1996
"Public education demands a capacious critique, one that encourages
both dissent and invention, fury and hope. Public education is bountiful,
crowded, messy, contradictory, exuberant, tragic, frustrating, and remarkable.
We need an expanded vocabulary, adequate to both the daily joy and daily
sorrow of our public schools. And we are in desperate need of rich, detailed
images of possibility."
-- from the Introduction to
Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education
in America,
by Mike Rose (Penguin paperback, $12.95).
Read
about Mike Rose's selection as the 1997 winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer
Award.
September 1996
"I agree it's important to ask 'who's doing all the thinking in this
classroom?' I think it's also important to ask yourself, 'Who is doing all
the work in this classroom?' I use that as a little gauge of my success
during the day. I like to see the kids go out more tired than I am."
-- Part of a teacher-to-teacher conversation on the Middle-L listserv
August 1996
"We virtually never tell kids what school is about, what they'll *learn*
that's worth it all or just might be worth it all. We virtually never say
to them that what you're doing here is important to us. That in knowledge
there is power; that the truth shall set you free. That making sense of
the world will make you not only more joyous, but more powerful.
"We don't say those things because we don't believe them. Even if we
do believe them, we feel foolish saying them. But there are no better excuses
for keeping these kids in school for 12 years. It's a crime to keep them
in school for 12 years only for them to 'do good' at school. Either it's
great stuff, or they ought to have an opportunity to spend their youth doing
great stuff."
-- Deborah Meirer, Co-Director
Central Park East Secondary School
in a speech to the Education Writers Association
Why Educate? , April 16, 1994
July 1996
"Teaching is both a caring and an intellectual profession. But many
caring teachers turn into 'moral martyrs,' cheerless workaholics, or disillusioned
cynics as they encounter relentless, debilitating odds. And while knowledge
is becoming more sophisticated and potentially more powerful, teachers still
do not experience their teacher preparation or on-going working conditions
as intellectually inspiring or problem-solving enterprises.
"We believe that the education profession is at a turning point, and
that quantum changes in the nature of the profession as a profession are
for the first time both essential and possible. But these changes are not
inevitable. Our premise is that teachers and principals themselves must
ultimately make them happen. No one else can be relied on to get it right."
-- Michael Fullan & Andy Hargreaves
What's Worth Fighting for in Your School?
Teachers College Press, 1996
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