Cycle 5: What does a good school look like?

The more I think about it, and the more questions I ask myself, it becomes harder to answer the question of “What does a good school look like?  Is it a school with good test scores?  Is it a school that embraces fine arts?  Is it a small school? There are many lists posted of "what makes a good school."  Although there are some good points, it is not as simple as creating a list.  I find it almost easier to examine what a good school does not look like, rather that to define what it does look like.

I work in a small school, with a total of 22 staff members (this includes secretarial and custodian staff).  As suggested by experts, this is a good staff size for team building. (Meier, 2002, p.53)  six of the nine classrooms are under 20 students, with only 3-5/6 being under 25 students.  Although it is nice that we have built a close community, there are definitely negative factors.  There is only one grade-level for students 2^nd grade through 6^th grade.  Although there are many opportunities for staff to collaborate, many are not familiar with content for your grade-level.  Also, a large problem I have in my 5/6-split classroom is students have almost created a sense of “cabin fever.”  Many have been in the same classroom with the same students since for the seventh year in a row!  They know too much about each other, to the point they act like siblings, not peers.  They hold grudges about things that happened many years ago, even though many have changed and matured.  And with our school having an overwhelming majority of African American students, many parents have the view as Meier mentions.  That not only am I “a racist but [I am] out to injure children of color” (p.  58).

While reading the articles for this cycle, I found myself being more and more unsure than before of what a good school looks like.  One thing that really stood out to me was the take Noddings has on Plato’s views on organization by natures. “Children are to be watched and tested to identify their talents and interests and then they are to receive an education compatible with their demonstrated natures” (p.428) At first, this makes sense.  This could be comparable to knowing your students and then teaching to their learning styles.  But, through further analysis, I began to envision The Giver.  This is what their society is based on.  The elders spend years observing the children and then use their interactions and data to determine where they fit best, to then focus their education (after the ceremony of the 12’s) based on their “demonstrated natures.”  Although I find The Giver to be a fascinating book, is that how we actually want life to be?

Plato’s two aims, educating the three large classes and educating the soul, is something that many of today’s schools are lacking.  We are so focused on meeting state standards and performing on standardized tests, we forget that we are not creating robots, but we are educating children.  This goes along with teaching to students’ needs.  If we understand that not all students are at the same level, and we understand that they have different needs, then how can we say that they all need to perform (on standardized tests) at the same time with the same expectations?

When looking at teaching our students, we ask ourselves, “What is the big idea?  What is our objective?  What are we accomplishing? How do we know our students are there?”  But when looking at the purpose of our current education system, does everyone agree one what our purpose is?  How is it measurable?

One situation I ran into this year was during an IEP.  The sixth grade student came from another school, and had a learned helplessness behavior.  He did not have much of a drive and anytime he felt the least bit unsure, he would refuse to work and just put his head down.  Throughout the year, his self-esteem and self-efficacy grew.  But, due to the lack of attention at his previous school, his mother enlisted a special education advocate to make sure we were meeting his educational needs.  We were making accommodations and modifying learning to meet his needs, but he came to our school so far behind in reading and math, it was a struggle for him to learn grade-level content, even with support.  Although he was making significant progress, due to lack of work at the beginning of the year, he received a “C” on his report card.  Our report cards also have a 1-4 rating system: 1,needs improvement; 2, shows progress; 3, proficient; and 4, exceeds proficiency.  So, he received many 2’s because he was showing progress, but was not yet proficient.  The mother and special education advocate attacked me that if we were truly doing everything we could, he would not have received a “C,” and that we were setting him up for failure.  I truly felt like I was in the PTA meeting (Louie, 2010).  It didn’t matter that he was making progress.  This was sending a message that his progress was not enough, “what really matters in education is their test scores.”  Some administrators take this idea of raising test scores a little too far!

How Should Curriculum Be Created?

 The first thought I had, while reading this article, was that even though the “Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction” was published in 1949 for an educational syllabus, many of the same objectives and problems still exist today.  While reading the introduction, talking about needs, it mentioned health education and social studies.  There is a huge gap with needs, between what is and what should be.

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?

Is it really necessary?

Middle school was a horrible time for me, as well as for many people I know.  Everyone is different and unique, but middle school is not the place to be different.  Growing up I did not deal with the thoughts and feelings inside that many GLBT students do, but my differences were on the outside – right out in the open.  I was an early bloomer.  I had horrid acne (on my face, neck, back, arms, etc.) and filled out my shirt quite well.  These were even more obvious when we had swim class everyday for a whole marking period.  I was made fun of and harassed by students at school and on the bus.  Many days I came home crying and did not want to leave my room.  The horrible things other kids said would just run through my mind and I felt that no one cared about me.  After a while, even my “friends” joined forces with the other kids.  I tried to make new friends, but no friends stuck.  I felt so alone.  I didn’t even want to go to school anymore.  My parents knew a little bit, but I did not feel that anyone could stop what was happening.  Of course, none of the horrible things were said in front of other adults; so, how could they stop it?

As Burns states, “Teen bullying and suicide has reached an epidemic in our country. Especially among gay and lesbian youth, those perceived to be gay, or kids who are just different.”  I was bullied just because I was different.  Because I was a kid going through puberty.  I feel that bullying has gone on in schools for decades, but it is different than it used to be.  Maybe kids said things, but the abuse was more physical.  When my parents were in school, kids got slammed into lockers and they got beat up in the parking lot.  Someone might be called a “nerd,” but that was the extent of the verbal harassing.  Although it has continued through time, the course of action has changed.  I completely disagree with the idiom, “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”  I feel that it is quite the opposite.  Yes, being physically bullied will hurt, but it is short term.  Bruises scrapes and cuts heal, but words stick stay in your brain.  You hear them being repeated over, and over, and over again in your head.  They do not go away. 

Although I am not a usual Lifetime Channel viewer, someone in my household DVRed "Sexting in Suburbia."  It is a horribly sad story about a girl named Dina whose naked picture went viral after sending it to her boyfriend.  When she commits suicide, her mother begins looking for answers.  She had been taunted and teased from the kids at school and the community.  Yes, even the parents were involved.  The school and staff knew about it, but did nothing to stop it.  When her mother starts digging around she begins receiving threats, break-ins and her daughter's grave is terrorized.  This is reality for others out there.  How can we send these messages that this is okay to our students?  

Many parents do not take bullying seriously, especially when it comes to boys.  I have heard time and time again, “Boys will be boys!”  I had a situation this year where I called a parent because of a boy in my class saying things to and about another child in the classroom.  Although the mother was not happy with her son, she did not see the action as “bullying” or “that big of a deal.”  There are many resources out there for teachers to help aide in bullying prevention.  If parents were aware of why these issues are so important, they would no longer be controversial issues.

The big question is why do we teach?  What is our purpose?  What do we want to accomplish?  I want to provide all students with a safe and secure environment where they feel comfortable and want to learn and make sense of the world around them.  A place where my students are engaged, curious and become members of a community and life-long learners.   Although I have not heard any students refer to each other having AIDS or HIV, as mentioned by Silin’s, I have heard them use slang and other derogatory terms where they did not know the actual meaning, but had just heard it used by others in the media and at home.  “Whether motivated by specific fears and anxieties, or simply the emotional resonance of the word in our culture, their behaviors accurately mimicked the responses of the majority of adults” (Silin, p.247)

Although it is not appropriate to ignore these situations, I do understand why some teachers do not want to get involved in discussing controversial matters in their classrooms.  The charter school I work at only holds year-long contracts, they have to renew your contract at the end of every year to ensure your job for the following school year.  If controversial issues are brought up and it causes uproar with the parents, regardless of teaching ability, you could lose your job at the end of the school year.  In this economy, many people cannot afford to find a new job.  This puts teachers between a rock and a hard place.   But, at the same time, the students are already hearing these things at home, the media, the grocery store, the bus, the playground, etc.  They take the bits and pieces they hear and share them.  It is like the game telephone.  By the time it gets to the end only bits and pieces, if anything, resembles the original message.  Kids may not comprehend everything they hear, but they build their own understanding and create misconceptions.  Why is it not better to ask the children what they know, what they wonder, what they want to know?  Don’t we do this with everything else we teach?  But most importantly, we need students to be able to realize we are there for them, that we can help, that it does get better!

I like the idea of touching on the controversial issues within the content already being taught.  Giving students real situations in history – these provide a great base for critical thinking, while still learning about subject matter.  But I believe, along with others, the stem to many controversial issues is religion.  We live in a free country and we are free to practice any religion we please.  But as teachers, we have to step out of our own shoes, and share many different view points and perspectives and give the students the opportunity to build their own perspective.  This problem arises when the students’ viewpoints do not align with their parents’ viewpoints or religious beliefs, which is when things become controversial.