SED 407 Reading Response: Daniels & Zemelman ‘Subjects Matter’ Chapters 6 & 7

  

The picture above is from the office of the facilities manager where I used to work. He was an awesome guy – hard working, committed, and caring – he went above and beyond to care for the beautiful property at which we worked. But it was a huge property and there were many aspects to its management and I imagine at times the job was overwhelming. The note pictured above was pinned to a board in the facilities manager’s office – he had written it himself as a reminder that if he attempted to do everything, he wouldn’t be doing anything very well. Do fewer things, but do those things better.

I snapped a picture of this note because it spoke to me – “do less better” is an ideal I have been striving for my entire adult life, both personally and professionally. I thought of this picture as I was reading chapter 6 in D&Z – essentially “do less better” is what D&Z propose for textbook coverage and curriculum development. As they say, “teach a few things well and fully – and let some other stuff slide.” I love this idea – I think it is better teaching, leading to better learning, and it also relieves some of the pressure I imagine myself under when I become a teacher, pressure to cover a huge curriculum. But then I wonder, can I really get away with this? How much freedom will I have to let some stuff slide? I realize I keep asking essentially the same question and that it will depend on the climate of whatever school I end up at – but regardless of the expectations of the school I end up at, if I believe that “do less better” leads to better teaching and learning, then it is something I should fight for. Hopefully, if I am teaching well and my students are learning, this will be reflected in their assessment. As D&Z point out, textbook-based teaching isn’t leading to higher test scores – by superficially covering everything that might be on the test, students end up learning little. But, by doing less better – by helping students to uncover the reading (I love this idea of cover versus uncover), get at big ideas and “act upon them” – kids may actually do better on the tests even if they haven’t covered every little nugget of content. It’s encouraging that D&Z point out that tests are moving away from pure recall towards skills assessment, hopefully aligning better with “do less better” instruction.

Of course, doing less better requires prioritization. UbD, mentioned here by D&Z, offers a good filter for prioritization. I also like Isabel Beck’s three-tier vocabulary acquisition model – it’s a good lens to prevent getting hung up on those Tier 3 words that come across as so important in the textbook, but aren’t so crucial in terms of big ideas – the low utility terms. I think it’s especially easy for teachers and students to get hung up on these low utility words in science classes, so I am glad to have this model to help with that. I also appreciate that D&Z say “vocabulary work should be multimodal and multisensory.” Unfortunately, as a substitute teacher I see a lot of assignments where students are asked to simply copy definitions from the text, an activity they get nothing out of.  Sometimes they are asked to define new terms “in their own words”, but they are asked to do so when their only exposure to these terms has been reading the definition in the text – they haven’t played with, explored, or used the words, how can they be expected to define them in their own words, to have any ownership over them?

I appreciate the textbook activities D&Z offer in chapter 6 – I can see myself using all of them in moderation. I like how an activity like jigsawing creates an opportunity for students to “do” a subject, to act like real historians or scientists, making connections, sharing ideas, and building knowledge. 

I don’t have a ton to say about chapter 7 – there’s a lot of good stuff in this chapter …

know your students, respond to their interests – create a friendly classroom environment in which students feel safe to take risks – connect content to students’ lives – provide opportunities for students to work together and support each other and explicitly teach them skills for how to do so effectively – give students choices and responsibilities – foster self-esteem, character, and confidence – respect cultural differences – have high expectations – value communication with and between students – model the skills and behaviors of a passionate life-long learner

… all of which I think is very important despite my casual treatment of it here in this blog – but I don’t have much to add other than that I want to keep all this in mind when I teach. D&Z offer some good strategies about how to foster this kind of a classroom community which is refreshing because so often when I read about this stuff the message is simple “this is how it should be” without saying much about how to achieve it. I also like the perspective that D&Z offer that this classroom culture stuff is not just about making students feel good – it is important because it enables students to learn meaningfully and to develop a positive attitude towards learning. It shapes students’ roles as readers and learners, creators of knowledge – it gives personal value to learning beyond grades and pleasing a teacher.