Entry #28 - March 29, 1999


"I'm pleased that we're ending social promotion and I'm excited about the possibilities of exit projects, but I'm worried too. What about all those teachers who haven't ever taught thematically? Where will we find the time for the professional development and reflection?"

As of June 2000, our students will be required to complete exit projects in grades 8 and 12. The projects must be cross curricular, standards driven and contain some tangible performance or exhibition piece. In 2002, the projects will need a service component as well.

In 2000, our District is also dropping its social promotion policy in favor of standards and performance based assessments. In other words, students will need to actually pass their course work and systemwide tests before they move on or out of our system.

While teachers as a whole are rejoicing about the end of social promotion, our joy will necessarily be short lived. Underneath the celebration lies a mass of tangled questions and issues.

A few of the questions which loom large are: What happens to the kids whom we know are on a collision course with failure next year? Do we wait until next year and then suddenly require summer school? Can summer school hope to accomplish what 4, 7 or 11 years did not?

Then of course there's the question of where you place those students who are unsuccessful and or do not attend summer remediation -- do they stay behind with younger students? Finally, in these times of shrinking budgets and swelling enrollments, how do we fund all of these programs and where do we house these students?

Our District is offering summer programs in grades 4, 7, 9 and 12 this year, but they're not required yet. It's a start, but I've heard more discussion about funding and eligibility to teach than discussion of curriculum and content. I wonder what these programs will accomplish?

We need multiple answers to all of these questions -- creative strategies that meet the needs of all of our students -- but, and here's the rub, creativity and classes of 33+ don't mix well. When you have a student load of 165 or 250, it's hard to get everyone's faces and names straight. Clearly we need to know more than our students' names to really address their individual learning and emotional needs, but smaller class size is dismissed as too costly. So having turned away from the single intervention which everyone agrees makes a difference -- decreased teacher-student ratios -- we forge ahead.

I'm pleased that we're ending social promotion and I'm excited about the possibilities of exit projects, but I'm worried too. What about all those teachers who haven't ever taught thematically? Where will we find the time for the professional development and reflection which is needed to make exit projects worthwhile?

In my Small Learning Community, we're going to invent a new position next year, in the hopes of answering some of these questions. Instead of teaching seventh and eighth grade science to 165 kids, I'll be offering technology-assisted problem solving (TAPS) to the entire building of approximately 250 students.

Hopefully, my classroom will become a Tech-Ed lab where students can explore and define the focus of their exit projects. By teaching a range of computer skills and applications I plan to open up the possibilities for our kids' exhibitions.

In addition, I'll be presenting a range of technology challenges which require problem-solving and hands-on solutions using recycled and consummable building materials. I hope to bring in students from local engineering programs to support this aspect of the work.

During vacation, this week, I'm going to write a Michael Jordan grant to try and get extra supplies to support the lab I'm envisioning. I'm also going to draft a survey/letter for my colleagues to determine what novels and themes they'll be developing next year.

As much as possible my instruction should be geared toward drawing in the different disciplines and supporting the work of my colleagues. If we can pull this together, we'll all feel less fragmented. I want the exit projects to be a celebration of what our kids know and not a dead end that hangs over everyone's heads.

Having said all of that, I must also confess that I'm scared of teaching so many kids. I remember when I was worried when I started teaching two, then three, and then five sections. Now we're talking ten sections!

I've started telling the kids about the change and they seem interested. I'm presenting it as a lab we're going to design together to support their projects in other classes. So far, the eighth graders have complained, because they won't be here and the seventh graders have seemed curious. Of course, it might have been the promise of k'nex and computers that really got their attention.

I guess I'd better develop a student survey too, so that my words about joint ownership aren't just empty phrases. Old habits die hard. Despite my three years of CFG work, and my lofty democratic ideals, asking the kids is still an afterthought...grrrr.

I'm glad I have a week off to dig into these ideas and I'm happy I'm being given this opportunity to grow as a teacher. Making it worthwhile for the kids is going to be the test.


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