Entry # 22: I took this job
to help kids, not to help folks label them
Here in Philadelphia we have a team review process for children in need
of additional support(s). Any child who needs help with attendance, behavior,
academics or some combination of all three, can be brought up in a team
meeting for discussion and focus by the group. In our District this process
is called, CSP, or the Comprehensive Support Process.
Everybody wants to know about CSP. How does it work? Who has to be informed
and when? How long does an intervention have to be put into place before
it can be scrapped as ineffective and we can get the child tested or placed
elsewhere? The list goes on and on. . . .
I'm growing quite tired of these endless questions because I rarely hear
the kids' interests at the heart of the process. Call me naive, but I thought
we had these structures to provide some scaffolding for our regular education
kids, something to prop them up along the way until they could scale the
walls of learning independently. CSP is supposed to act as a stop-gap measure,
not a life sentence.
Nothing but paper trails
We seem to have lost our way. Instead of teams trying to collectively design
supports and creative solutions to our students' learning problems, I see
teachers overwhelmed with the creation of paper trails that document "all
that's wrong" with our kids. I see and hear an approach that places
legal responsibilities first, with the actual classroom support of our children
coming in a distant second.
I thought the kids who needed CSP attention were supposed to be in the minority,
but I'm beginning to see that I was wrong, especially in our middle schools.
As our system fails to meet the needs of an increasingly large population
of young people, the CSP rolls are swelling.
It's not much of a leap to predict that in the not too distant future, more
of our urban children will be inside the CSP process than outside. Sounds
like we're overdue for a wake up call to me. Perhaps we should spend more
time figuring out why we're failing to reach so many kids, and less time
worrying about how to sreamline the documentation protocols.
I didn't take this job to help label kids
The other day I was co-facilitating a session on ways to teach higher order
thinking skills as an ongoing part of our curriculum, as opposed to just
trying to teach test taking skills. Participants from two different schools
interrupted to ask if we'd have any time to discuss CSP, at this, our February
meeting. They were so worried about moving kids through the pipeline that
they weren't paying attention to the learnings we were trying to share.
I know a lot of our kids are needy. I live in the real world, but I also
know that working to show them their way into the excitement and possibilities
of learning is a lot more satisfying at the end of the day than filling
out a bunch of forms.
I took this job to promote differentiated instruction and constructivist
teaching, not to help folks label an increasingly large number of children
as "at-risk" or deficient. We're supposed to be moving away from
tracking and stratification and toward inclusiveness.
Carol Ann
Tomlinson, in her book The
Differentiated Classroom, talks about struggling learners as being in
need of "many avenues to learn." I want to spend my time helping
kids co-chart their road maps. I don't want to be the one putting up the
detour signs and waving the orange flag.
She also talks about the needs of our advanced children for the development
of their sense of self-efficacy.When students work cooperatively, they deepen
their understanding by teaching others. All of our children need life skills
and these skills should be imbedded across our curriculum. I'm still walking
by far too many classrooms where lecture and chalk-and-talk are the rule.
Teachers have been telling me for years that they'd use cooperative groups
if the kids knew how to listen and cooperate. We're always going to get
around to student ownership and voice "later," when student behavior
is under control.
Our students' glazed expressions tell the story
Why is it that every kindergarten teacher knows that kids can, and do, work
independently and in groups at learning centers, but middle and high school
teachers say they're not ready? Do we think kids slide backward in their
social and emotional development?
I think we believe that centers can be equated with play -- and that fun
and learning don't really mix. Logic says our curriculum is too full to
waste time on centers and project based learning -- better to lecture and
answer the questions at the end of the chapters. Despite the test results,
despite the glazed eyes of our students, we press on in our efforts to cover
the curriculum.
If we want our kids to think, we need to align our instruction and assessment
with our desired outcome. If we want them to function like active, responsible
citizens, we need to give them some decisions to make and some opportunities
for active participation.
When students are involved and engaged, they're much more interested in
learning and doing the work than in misbehaving. Sometimes, I think we've
seen the enemy and it is us. We're well armed with our ditto sheets and
our mind-numbing lectures, but we're losing the battles at an alarming rate.
How many casualties before we'll be willing to change our strategies? This
week, if you're watching the news and you hear that a middle level administrator
in Philadelphia went ballistic, you'll know it was me and that I just got
asked for the umpteenth time about CSP, when I was trying to encourage a
shift in instructional practice. Grrrr!
[Editor's note: Deb is co-moderator of the
new MiddleWeb listserve.]
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