What is School For?

A few weeks ago in SED 406, we looked at the work of John Dewey and Ivan Illich in the context of addressing the question ‘What is school for?’ Dewey and Illich have very opposing views regarding the value of schools as social institutions. Dewey sees schools as the foundation of society, “bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.” Illich, on the other hand, calls for a “deschooling” of society, a disestablishment of institutionalized learning, which he believes promotes “psychological impotence” by fostering dependence and causes “global degradation and modernized misery.” Though seemingly so opposed, there is a commonality in the ideas of Dewey and Illich – the idea that real learning empowers students to let their interests guide their educational journey. Both Dewey and Illich prioritize a development of personal agency as a goal of education. However, Dewey believes that school fosters agency while Illich believes it kills it.

Class discussion on this subject was very interesting. I think many of us saw some sense in Illich’s radical ideas, but felt that a complete deschooling of society is impractical. While Illich would argue that institutionalized education is inherently subject to inequities, we questioned how doing away with institutions and putting the power of education completely in the hands of individuals could possibly lead to equity in a society such as ours in which there is so such great income inequality. On the other hand, I don’t think any of us would argue for returning to Dewey’s time where education primarily meant imparting the values of rich, white men unto other rich, white men. In thinking about what school is for in modern America, I agree with Dewey and Illich on the matter of developing agency – I believe that the goal of schools is to foster critical thinking and problem solving skills while providing a standard of basic knowledge. I tend to agree more with Dewey however on the idea of educational institutions being beneficial for society. I think it is possible to have institutions that provide equitable access to education and give power to the people served. Whether or not this is actually happening in schools today is another question – Illich may be more correct on that fact. However, just because institutions can be structured in such a way as to disempower those they serve, I do not think this is inherent to their nature. I think it’s important to look at the structure of an institution, what it values and how its values guide its practices.

Following this discussion, we spent some time observing classes at Central Falls High, keeping the question of ‘What is school for?’ in mind. I observed a history class in which the students worked in groups on laptops researching military technology used in World War I. They were instructed by the teacher to fill out a detailed description of how the technology worked, how it was different from what was used in previous wars, what the equivalent technology looks like today, and how it affected the soldiers, which the teacher stressed was the most important part. The students would be giving brief presentation on their research the following day. While only a small glimpse into what is going on in the classrooms at Central Falls High, I think this was a good lesson in that it was student-focused. Alternatively, the teacher could have lectured to the students about this subject, but I don’t think this would have been as effective. By structuring the lesson as a research project, the teacher has put the power of learning into the students’ hands and is helping them to develop critical thinking skills that are widely applicable. I think this suggests that the goal of Central Falls High is not simple to get students to spit back a lot of information to which they see no connection, but to help them develop agency and empower them in their learning. Though, there is also a message in the school of how important graduation is in and of itself (there are literally signs in the hallways saying, “Get on track to graduate!”), which I think reflects the practical reality of school sometimes – we discussed this in class after our observations, how in poor communities, school is often important in simply meeting the basic needs of students. Still, the school seems to care about the students in terms of their whole development – there are lots of after-school activities offered that reflect varied interests and cultures and I think they are on the right track to becoming a school that provides valuable learning experiences and builds young people into strong and thoughtful citizens.

Microteaching II... and the semester comes to an end!

On Tuesday, I did my Microteaching II lesson for SED 406. This time we were to do a 35-40 minute indirect instruction lesson. My lesson was on population ecology and asked students to graph and analyze real-world data collected on Canada lynx and snowshoe hare populations. The essential question of the lesson was: How do populations of related organisms within an ecosystem change over time?

I think the lesson went pretty well. I was oddly nervous (I feel like I get more nervous in front of my peers than I do in front of students) and went slightly over time again (blergh!), but in general I think the lesson was a success. I haven't watched the entire video yet, but one thing I was thinking was that maybe I talked with the students a little too much during their exploration time - I think it's important to interact with students during this time to make sure they're on the right track and to push them farther, but by the time we got to the discussion part of the lesson, I felt like I had already had the discussion. Anyway, let's see what my "students" thought...

PS - to my fellow SED 406 students - it's been great getting to know you this semester, hope to have more classes with you as we continue on this adventure!

Assessment Observation

Last week in SED 406 we had the opportunity to spend some observation time in classrooms in Central Falls High. We were asked specifically to pay attention to assessment strategies used by the teachers we observed. In other words, how did they hold their students accountable during class? How did they make sure that students were actively involved in whatever learning activity was happening?

Before we were let loose to observe, we talked about some things to look for in the classrooms. We discussed how moving about the room and using students’ names while teaching is one way of making sure that students are keeping their heads up off their desks and their attention on you. Another strategy is to give students a worksheet to fill out during lecture segments or reading assignments, or to instruct them to take notes. However, this is only effective if you collect worksheets and notes afterwards – to make students truly accountable, they need to know that their teacher will know if they are actively involved or not. Effective assessment also requires an understanding of how to assess without disrupting class or taking up too much teaching time and of how to collect data on assessment – how will you keep track of each student’s assessment from day to day?

We also discussed things that teachers should avoid when it comes to assessment. Teachers need to be conscious of both the tendency to teach something and then not assess it or assess something that was not taught – both of these situations can turn students off from classroom engagement. Another pitfall of assessing is mismatching the level of learning objectives with the level of an assessment strategy.

The first class I visited was an engineering class. The students were watching a ’60 Minutes’ video about the design and construction of a protective dome for the Chernobyl disaster site. The teacher informed us that the students would be asked to write a reflection, given a prompt, after viewing the video. However, the students did not have the reflection prompt before them as they watched the video and I did not see any students taking notes. I think it would have been more effective to have given the students the prompt during the viewing or to have had them take notes. This would have focused their attention and likely led to more meaningful reflections. As the video played, the teacher did move around the room a bit, tapping inattentive students on the shoulder and directing their attention back to the video. But as the video played on, attention seemed to wane in general. As the Chernobyl segment of the video ended, I expected the teacher to have a brief follow-up discussion with the class about what they had just seen, but this did not happen – he quickly moved on to the next segment. It seemed to me that the students were not being effectively assessed on what they were (or were not) learning from the video – there was little accountability and therefore little learning happening.

The second class I visited was an English class. When I entered the classroom, the students were working quietly with their textbooks open, some alone and some in small groups. They were reading ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’ and were working on answering questions on the worksheet about what they had read up until that point. The teacher in this classroom was more experienced and he seemed to have an excellent rapport with his students. The classroom had a friendly, playful atmosphere but there was also real work being done. As the students worked, the teacher walked about the room, checking in with groups and individuals, talking with them about the questions. From time to time, he would say things to keep the class on track like, “You should be working on question seven by now.” After a few minutes of this, the teacher called the class’ attention back to him. He gave a synopsis of what they had read so far, asking the class questions as he did so. If the class had no response to his question, he would direct them to particular parts of the text, guiding them to find the answer. Then he read the next part of the story aloud to the class, but before he did so, he directed their attention to question 8, telling them they would be expected to answer this question after the reading. As he read, he interjected with questions for the class, such as “Anyone want to make a prediction?” At the end of the segment, he called on a student by name and asked them to sum up what he had just read.  I left this classroom with a sense that this teacher was very effective at assessment and holding his students accountable. I noticed that as he read, most students were taking notes on their worksheets. They were also willing to answer and ask questions. They were paying attention and actively involved – it was clear that they had learned that in this class, they were accountable. I think this had a lot to do with the teacher’s behaviors of moving about the room, asking questions, continually checking that students were on track. There also seemed to be mutual respect between the teacher and his students and I think this is hugely important when it comes to holding students accountable.