Today, with the exponential rise in childhood obesity, it
would seem that health and food education would be high in priorities within
the elementary school setting.
At the school I teach at, almost all of our students receive
free and reduced lunch. Since they
receive it, they have to take a school lunch everyday, even if they brought
their own lunch. There is one student
who is overweight. He receives a school
lunch, even though he brings his school lunch everyday. This past week, in his lunch from home, he
had a whole bag of chips (not the snack size).
He ate the whole bag, the rest of his lunch, and his school lunch. When he threw away the empty bag of chips, I
looked at the nutritional facts on the back of the bag. He had consumed over 1, 000 calories in just
chips! In addition, I invited a group of
girls to have lunch with me this past week.
They all received school lunch, although a few of them also had lunch
from home as well. In one of the lunches
was a whole package of salami lunchmeat that she ate. If sociologists view schools a place “to
provide those knowledges, skills, attitudes, and the like that will help people
to deal intelligently with contemporary problems” (Tyler, 1949, p. 5) we are
failing.
While planning curriculum, it is important to use multiple
sources of data in decided what should be taught. If every school is different, how can all
schools within one state be mandated to teach the same exact things? A question I often wonder is, are we wasting
our time teaching things just because they have been taught for the past 50
years? Take cursive writing for
instance; it is required for my students to know how to write in cursive. I understand that some people (for the past
50 years) write in cursive, so they must know how to read it. But, when asked, many responses I hear
students getting are, “You want to be able to sign your paychecks, don’t
you?” Well the real question is: are
these students going to have to be able to sign paychecks? My paycheck is electronically deposited. In addition, with technology, chances are
that they students in the workforce will not be writing at all. Maybe teaching keyboarding skills would be
more beneficial for our students to learn. Are we preparing our students for a digital and technology rich world?
Khan presents an interesting movement in education and
technology. If we are talking about
getting data and feedback from students.
What they want to learn and how they want to learn it, Khan’s
educational database is moving in the right direction for our time. In a sense, this online system works. It does allow teachers to have more accurate
data on their students, as well as be able to spend more time one-on-one. One Idea I did not like about his theory was
that it used peer-to-peer tutoring. In
mention, these were not students whom wanted to be a tutor, but were only
proficient in the material. Research has
shown that many students who are ahead of other students do not enjoy
“teaching” other students; they see this as a burden. They would rather continue working at a
higher level and solving problems or having discussions with others at their
same level or interests. “The problems should not be the kinds of
questions in which the answer can be immediately obtained by looking them up in
the textbook or some other reference material” (Tyler, 1949, p. 69) If students
should learn through experiences to develop a higher level, as well as
different types, of thinking. Should we
be submitting these students to peer-to-peer tutoring scenario if it is
unwanted?
As we take all of this into consideration, we look back at what we taught this year and start planning for next year. What worked? What didn't? This can be hard because there can be many factors - students playing a large part. Will these same things work with my students next year? Will they have different needs?
Antoinette, I shared your surprise that a document written in 1949 is still so relevant. Often when reading works that old (or older) I find myself thinking something like, “yes, that might have worked then…” In this case though, I could definitely see the relevance of this book in modern curricular planning.
ReplyDeleteMy first response to your comments about the kids’ lunches is shock! I read that part aloud to my husband and he was shocked too. He’s a snacker, he’d rather eat continuously all day than sit and eat a meal, and lucky that he has a naturally high metabolism, but he said he couldn’t even eat a whole bag of chips in one sitting! Honestly he probably could, but he realizes how bad for him that would be so he doesn’t. You’re absolutely right that nutrition is an obvious need starting in elementary grades. Obviously kids don’t have that much control over what they eat, but it might help for them to have a more realistic view of what a portion size should be, for example, so they’re not eating two full meals at a time. On a related note, I think schools send a strong message about nutrition by what they serve in the cafeteria, especially in schools where they know many of the kids have free lunch, and that’s their only option. The cafeteria at my school tries to promote “nutrition”- for instance they started having fresh fruit Thursday- once a week there is a serving of fruit (often looking past its prime) offered at lunch. Other than that, it’s hard to make a healthy choice in the cafeteria even if you have the education about what that means and the desire to make such choices! A colleague of mine sent her son to kindergarten last year, and all students were required to eat breakfast at school. She doesn’t let her kids have many sugary foods, and was horrified that her son had to eat a doughnut or a sausage on a stick wrapped in a pancake and drowned in syrup for breakfast. I would be too! Yes, it’s important to teach kids that eating breakfast is important, but eating something so high in sugar and low in anything else is almost worse than skipping breakfast altogether!
I’m torn about the cursive writing part. I agree that with technology we probably won’t need to be able to write in the future, it just makes me sad, I guess, to think of it being lost. It’s so different to hand-write something than to type. In North Carolina it’s no longer required to teach cursive writing, and most of my students have never learned. However, the SAT has not kept up with this trend- they’re required to copy a statement at the beginning of the test in cursive. It is a painful process for these kids who don’t know how to do it. They feel clumsy and stupid, not a great way for them to start a test! I don’t know what the answer is, but either the SAT should change that, or I’d say that’s another reason for kids to have to learn cursive!
I have to disagree with the final part of your post. I know that some students don’t like teaching others, but I think part of the humanitarian side of our jobs is teaching kids to have compassion and want to help others. If not that, at least to be able to work well with others- employers are looking for people who are able to collaborate well. Peer teaching not only reinforces what the student has learned, but gives the student an opportunity to work on people skills. I did a lot of research on collaborative learning last summer, and have found it to work wonders in class this year. Yes, in one way it may be holding a talented student back, but the student is still learning and growing in other areas, and also builds a much nicer community than an each man for himself environment. I’d encourage you to not write peer tutoring off yet!
Antoinette,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you in that why waste our time arguing about what should be taught in the curriculum when we should look at more pressing matters. Obesity has become a huge issue in young children. According to Livestrong about one of three children can be classified as obese, and the numbers keep rising. We need to fight to make health and food education more of a priority, and help the decision makers see that this is a bigger issue. I couldn't believe that some of your students are forced to take a school lunch even though they bring their own lunch. That defeats the whole purpose, and doesn't help the child to narrow down the amount of food he/she is eating. It just forces them to eat more, and more because it is there right in front of them. I think it's a great program (don't get me wrong) that students can receive free and reduced lunches. However, the child should then realize that they shouldn’t bring a lunch from home because they know they will get served at school. Also a bag of chips, and a whole package of salami is not a real lunch to eat from home. This also shows no effort on the parents part as well. Livestrong's website also states that in order to prevent obesity you can, “teach children to make healthy choices and stay active are ways to prevent and treat childhood obesity” (Holley, 2009). That being said we need to change how we educate our students on health, and instead of eliminating physical education we need to increase it so that these students are being able to move around, and get the exercise that they need. Obesity levels aren't going to change by themselves, and if we don't help look at the more pressing matters then obesity will become an even bigger problem in the future then it already is.
I also agree with you on your point you made about cursive writing. What is the point? When I was younger that is all we learnt. However, now that I have grown up and experienced other ways to write I can only remember how to write my first and last name correctly in cursive handwriting. Which brings up your point about signing their own paychecks. I don't think that you need to learn cursive writing in order to sign your own paychecks. That isn't the point. Recently in my school the 1st and 2nd grade teachers decided they would teach cursive writing, but I am not really sure why they decided to do this. After reading your discussion post I am going to ask them why they chose to incorporate this now into their classroom. I am quite interested.
Technology is completely taking over our world, and that is one of those things we will have to prepare our students for. We need to stop wasting our time with things that our students won't ever use for the rest of their lives. For instance, I was reading another post by one of our peers before yours, and she had mentioned she wish she learnt when she was going to school how many teaspoons are in a cup. This is something I thought about as well. I never did learn about this, and this is something I struggle with when I am cooking. I also can't quite figure out what to do when I don't have the right measuring cup. These are things that we need to learn and will use for the rest of our lives. There are some things that the decision makers fight to keep in our curriculum that are completely pointless, and useless for our students when they grow up.
You had mentioned that Khan's website and interactive classroom is something that will help prepare his students for the future. I agree with this as well it also provides teachers with information that will help the students that are falling behind or struggling to keep up with specific material. Khan is preparing his students for a technology world, whereas we are still dealing with the decision makers about things like cursive handwriting that our students will probably never have to use in the future.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/40299-childhood-obesity-united-states/
Hi Antoinette,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! It generated a lot of great dialogue, and it easy to see why. You take on some really interesting and important issues.
Like Lisa, I almost fell off my chair when I heard about the lunch issue at your school. Healthy eating habits--health in general--is THE number 1 aim of the Cardinal Principles Report. To me, this is a case of forgetting why kids go to school. Of forgetting the purpose of school. Health is a primary outcome, because so much else depends on it. I can't imagine trying to teach a boy who just ate a huge bag of chips!
And I agree with your analysis of cursive (though I love it, it doesn't mean parents can't teach it, or have it taught in community ed classes--like calligraphy is now).
So to me, you are asking all the right questions. You are embracing your inner social behaviorist, and asking all the right questions: When will the child use this? Does this contribute to a happy, healthy and successful future citizen, spouse, parent and worker? Does this lesson meet a need, either social or individual?
I am with you on Khan. And generally speaking, I think you are right to ask questions about peer tutoring. It's like anything--if you are required to do it, and it seems joyless, you won't want to do it. But I'm not sure this is what Khan was talking about. I'm thinking about how you can ask a question to your friends on Facebook--know any good books on parenting? should I take my son to the clinic for this rash? what's the best recipe for chocolate birthday cake--and you have a few people more than happy to help out. I think this is more what Khan was talking about. When people are passionate about something, helping and teaching is a natural extension.
Even Khan notes that individualization can go too far. Kids these days will have to learn how to work together to add value to products and services. Maybe they will invent the next new technology toy, but more likely they will work to improve something already in place. That is really what Tyler says teachers need to start doing--stop waiting for the next new curricular fad to come around, and start working together to figure out how you can improve what you already have. That is what I see you doing with the questions you ask in this post. Awesome! Thanks,
Kyle
PS: Check out these posts, given what you wrote:
Fed up with School Lunch: http://fedupwithlunch.com/
Lansing eliminates gym teachers: http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/03/starving-michigan-schools-lansing-schools-eliminate-all-art-music-and-phys-ed-teachers.html
Khan on face-to-face learning: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/the-khan-academy-goes-to-camp-and-its-all-offline/