Push Down- part two

Think about your own education. What topics addressed in middle school are now being pushed to earlier grade levels? In theory this sounds like a wonderful idea since the world of information has exploded. However reality presents a question mark for this line of reasoning.
The first issue is development. Our children are born with physical features like adults however full brain development and life experience is not present at birth. Young children learn by exploring and checking often using the senses to become familiar with the world. Their world is usually small at birth then grows. The first impressions are of feeling comfort and safety hopefully. There is much intake of information using all the senses long before the first word is spoken.
We know that young children mimic what has been modeled and begin to learn the names of things at a very young age. Along with learning physical movement and speech (including singing) children explore and become familiar with the physical world around them. As children begin to grow there is recognition and the beginning of connections with symbols. Visualize learning as a continuously growing solid cone with continual increase in depth and diameter. There are layers and connections. Learning leads to or builds to more learning. Learning needs to start with what is known and comfortable to build understanding and make connections. If a child is given the opportunities to build a strong foundation by using and exploring knowledge that learning will support the student to move forward and accomplish much.
We all know that positive self-worth is built on the inside. When a person feels good about an accomplishment, it builds worth, self-awareness, and pride. Learning how one learns, logic, and reasoning develop with age and success develops that positive self-image. We know that children who are developmentally younger don’t understand or realize that there are 2 symbols for each letter in English and many of those letters and letter combinations have more than one sound. This inability to recognize this relationship is due to brain and growth development not to the inability for a child to learn. When a child reaches a certain stage of development and has the prior knowledge it comes together. In the real world a solid item maintains it shape no matter how it is sitting- but depending on how you turn a p,d,b,q, this shape becomes different letters and sounds depending on how it sits on a line (visible or invisible). This is a much more complex piece of learning that takes time to practice, learn, understand, and maintain and then use.
What about what is interesting to children? We know everyone (including adults) learns what catches their attention first. Often a young child will spend hours looking at categories. At first the category may be general such as animals, toys, cars, or shapes. This then turns to sorting in a variety of ways, how many legs, color, uses etc. Often children are touching, tasting, turning, looking, and smelling- all as part of learning about attributes. There needs to be time and opportunity to experience (experiment) with a variety ideas and thought. Although it may be nonverbal, that child is experiencing and observing same and different, patterns, and comparisons, theories and strategies for future problem solving. Of course none of this is verbalized but children are developing a foundation of strategies to handle experiences in the future- practicing how to learn.
Children in the preschools K, 1, and 2 are still involved with understanding and working on connecting the symbolic world with the real word-picture and word connected to the real thing. Social skills are starting but it is an eye opener for children when they become aware (around 7 or 8) of peers and what others do. Learning social skills take off at this point as well.
There are some children in the elementary schools that are struggling and not liking school because they are daily meeting with frustration. Educators are continually observing and helping the child revisit what got missed, forgotten, or miss understood. Often it has to do with a child’s previous learning and development. These children are NOT BEHIND in learning yet society chooses to treat them as though they are behind rather than allowing time and giving experiences that will strengthen understanding.
There are adults who believe that children can be taught anything. I agree because children memorize or mimic anything to please the adults around them. However, retention without learning and understanding is not there and the information needs to be retaught. One prime example is the child that is able to read any word shown to them however, there is no understanding (comprehension) of said text. Time and again as I talk with educators in upper elementary, middle school, and high school I hear them say- that students have not made the connections or don’t remember what has been learned in in the early years. I even hear college professors talking about lack of the basics. Think about the simple premise of where in your life you start remembering.
Perhaps if I may, we as adults need to allow children several years to develop strong reading-writing-speaking and math foundations in a positive environment and then all children can build from there. Educators need to be given the time to allow students to manipulate and practice the learning for understanding, connecting, retention, and transferring.
If we truly want our children to be successful, adults need to remember that every child/person has a different developmental time line that needs to be considered as it affects a child’s outlook, strategies, mental health, and ability toward learning. Has anyone asked the educator in the classroom what children need to become strong, confident lifelong learners?????

Push Down- part one

I was thinking the other day about an observation that came to me many years ago. I had the opportunity to hear David Elkind and later read his book- The Hurried Child. What resonated with me through the years is how society keeps pushing everything to younger and younger ages. Elkind went on to talk about how “age markers” are disappearing. The book and Elkind’s premise comes to mind when I see children in early elementary grades discussing and wearing designer brands, talking about dates, owning the latest in electronic equipment, and wearing makeup.
Society is strongly pushing education in the same direction- more formal instruction at a younger age. There is a push for academics in playschool/preschool. Kindergarteners are now expected to be reading and writing and performing math functions before exiting. Educators realize that some children are ready for this but many children struggle to please and try to understand. What is upsetting is that parents believe something is wrong with their child if he/she is not reading, writing, or doing math at an early age. This leads to parents with one more thing in life to worry about and to feel the need to pressure and/or do more for their child. It could easily be that their child is just not ready (developmentally not ready the educators would say) and is just fine but needs time to explore material and practice. I see this push tumbling into much bigger issues; a young student not developing a positive self- image or a healthy attitude toward learning rather adopting an inner worry that he/she is not good enough.
Jim Grant said, “Childhood is a journey, not a race.” Yet in this instant-do-it –right-and-get-it-the-first-time attitude many children are starting their educational journey feeling confused, stressed, and out of control of their situation.
States, districts and soon to be national expectations appear to be narrowing in on information to be learned during a specific grade level. In the beginning of trying to develop standards and benchmarks, said benchmarks were developed in clusters of grades; for K, 1, 2, then 3rd, 4th and 5th. This allowed time and space to become confident by many exposures and time to practice. With the current emphasis on testing, flexibility toward learning is becoming more structured.
The curriculums that today’s students are being taught, appear to be highly packed with “need to know” academic knowledge. Content is plentiful causing little time for a student to absorb the knowledge (process) for understanding, long term learning, and transferring and application of knowledge. So, many people who have not studied learning and brain development are pushing educators to teach more academic knowledge and processing at younger and younger ages not realizing that the brain may not be ready. Curriculums are becoming much more involved for our students in the younger grades. The societal and political feeling is that our students need to learn more. Some educators will tell you that we need to have higher expectations but are the expectations realistic? Children need time to play with knowledge, practice processes, and use what is expected to be known, to become competent strong learners.
Society seems to have forgotten that lesson we all learned during our early education: we are each unique, have individual experiences, each person learns in his/her own way and time.
Educational research and brain development research shows that knowledge becomes stronger and lasting when connections can be made and the new information is meaningful and useful. Students and adults learning information for a specific experience or test or to please others soon forget. Long term retention depends on the usefulness, connections developed, and relevance to the learner.
Currently people appear to be looking for the competitive edge. I would like to suggest that to get that edge young learners need time and practice for the first skills in life that form an all-important strong foundation for learning and creativity. Each student needs help to find self-esteem and a joy of learning by being given time to explore learning, time to practice therefore building a strong foundation, a positive self-image as well as a lifelong love of learning.

Graduation and Beyond

This is the time of year when most young people are looking forward. For some it is a time of decision and turmoil. For others (often the young) it is a time to worry and wonder what comes next. That may be as soon as this summer and for others summer becomes a hyphen and the worry is for the following fall. K-12 teachers will tell you that spring fever is really the wonder and uncertainty of how the changes will go and affect a student’s world.
There is a great deal of talk in the political arena for high school graduates to go to college. I feel that we are forgetting some of the real issues- the importance of public education K-12. A K-12 education is a lot more intense and involves tough curriculum expectations and advanced education with expectancies much higher than in even the last ten years. One of the foremost jobs of the state is to educate which leads to the right of children and adults of a state to an education through the high school level. A person should be able to graduate from high school with options. I do not understand this push that everyone needs a college education. College should be one of the many options following a successful high school completion.
So this is a really a joint venture- the state needs to provide districts with the teachers and the materials and the student takes responsibility and ownership of his/her education and the future. Again I mention college is an option- one option a high school graduate may have. The choice of “the next step” depends on goals and options and needs for life. There appears to be a big push that college is a must for everyone. For so many reasons I don’t agree. Not everyone for a variety of reasons wants or needs what college offers. There are so many different directions including going into the work force, enhancing a talent, military, perhaps fulfilling a commitment, obligation, or dream or even realizing that some decisions take time and patience.
One issue is that of economics. An interesting statistic I heard was that over 17% of the working population is working with more education than the job requires. There is also the issue of the cost of a college education and the amount of loans that are outstanding for many college graduates. Along with this is the wrong assumption that a college degree means you automatically start somewhere other than an entry level type position.
I heard an interesting report regarding U.S. colleges. The reporter mentioned that in a recent study it was found that college students only studied 4 hours a day but socialized for 14 hours. The reporter went on to say students didn’t get as much learning in comparison to the cost. The comment was made that the college faculty was to blame. This report angered me on several levels. Talking with college students many of them commiserate about the amount of work that is expected as well as time in hands on experience in his/her field. So if someone is socializing for 14 hours then perhaps college is the wrong place for the socializer that studies so little. I think it is all perspective- in the recent past a college education was not considered a right but something you had to work for; both to get in and to “prove yourself” to stay in. Just like any career. You had to work hard – a college diploma isn’t something deserved but something to work toward.
Having said that, friends have heard me say on more than one occasion- not everyone should be in college. I have shared my theory that the responsibilities of college being the cause of so much drinking/drugs and out of control behavior that has been in the news. Being clear here - college shouldn’t change for the students but the student needs to take ownership and responsibility and ownership of his/her life and learning. Some of the behavior has been tragic and well publicized. Could it be that students feel stressed and overwhelmed and are attending only because parents and politicians feel that is the only route of success for everyone?
We need a paradigm shift. I take issue then with a society that feels everyone needs to follow the same path and be in the same nitch. I firmly believe that everyone has talents to offer and those talents need to be encouraged and strengthened so that everyone has options upon graduating from high school.
Many people have great talents that many not need to be part of academia but make wonderful careers. These people have much sought after skills in areas like cooking, baking, art, music, carpentry, masonry, make up, design, massage, tailoring, writing or mechanics, people skills to name only a few. Many of these talents if given the nurturing and opportunity are just as vital and esteemed as academics and research. Not every career needs the backing of a college degree. For these talents it is not sitting in class that helps explode the talent but apprenticeships and courses and workshops that enhance those talents and whatever is needed to be successful in the real world.
After congratulating a high school graduate the question you need to ask that graduate is not “Where are you going to college?” But rather, ”So what are you thinking about for your next step in life?”

Questions

There are many numbers and phrases being thrown around these days to gather agreement to a particular point of view. Often two things happen. First they are thrown out to the public without background information or explanation. Second, interpretation of those numbers and ideas can be misleading because of the semantics and often emotions involved in the presentation. The general public is bombarded by information accurate, complete, detailed, or not.
In public school, late elementary and middle grades, I had teachers who taught us to question and not take numbers or catch phrases at face value. We were encouraged to ask questions such as: What is the source of this information? What is the background? What is the purpose? What kind of instrument was used to get these results? How many people were involved? Does it follow common sense? Is a definition needed? What has been omitted? What is the context from which this is lifted? Compared to what? Is there a second source with similar results? Do these numbers involve people? What should be looked at next? What was the intent for these results and what are the purposes of sharing this information? So what does the information tell us?
In this age of instant information and “short bites” many people often forget to ask those questions and jump to quick uninformed decisions or opinions. I give many journalists lots of credit for checking and asking the questions for their in depth stories. This should be each of us asking before starting to believe and repeat what we hear or see. Instead when questions are asked of the person who is speaking and giving information the questioner is often ignored and dismissed. The questioner is often felt to be a foe that is challenging or ignorant for asking rather than being respected or even given an answer that satisfies the question.
In this time of access and inundation of information everyone needs to be automatically asking questions. Think about all the places we are inundated with untested/unconfirmed information. Everyone needs to be wary; to ask questions.
Years ago there were public school educators who developed lessons involving questioning around advertisements. It usually involved families developing questions around a product the family was interested in. Then in class there was the sharing of questions and adding more, finding results and much discussion. With today’s curriculums there is not room for this type of education.
With the current packed mandated curriculums there is often no time to directly develop strong questioning skills which are part of critical thinking which leads to problem solving and creative thought. Many experienced educators realize the importance of questions with depth and add it to the classroom on their own.
In friendly, comfortable gatherings what fun to throw out some of those ideas for great discussion. Try asking questions rather than just making statements and then hearing what others are thinking. (Hint: Not as a challenge but to really listen to others.) Ah, truly listening is another critical thinking skill that needs to be cultivated.
Comments and statements that inspired me to ask questions and write this blog include; only 16% of our students are graduating ready for college, Race to the Top, 17% of people are under employed for their education, our fourth and seventh graders don’t know how to write.
In my opinion this condition of just accepting and blindly repeating everything is dangerous to us all. Constantly questioning is a skill that in these times of access to information, voluntarily and involuntarily, everyone needs to develop.

Educators

There has been a lot of media connected to education and educators. According to the politicians our educational system is full of “bad” teachers. Excuse me but where are they? There are educators as well as people in other fields that I many not personally like or that I might disagree with philosophically but that doesn’t make for a “bad” professional. In my career (as well as being a parent) which included having educational experiences in five states and 30 years, I came across very few “bad” educators. I met a few teachers that were less effective than others and those teachers were being helped to improve. I have seen a few teachers dismissed because they were not working at the expectations of the administrators as well as seeing administrator’s dismissed usually because of ethics.
Before being certified, there is the four plus years of college. This time gives the educators the theory and current research of what is behind teaching- this is the history, the background, and inquiry. Simultaneously, the college students are involved in preteaching activities by observing and participating in schools and classrooms with much supervision. Before becoming a certified educator then, there is student teaching. The student teaching is very eye opening as that pedagogy is put into place and techniques are put into practice. These are the times when people realize that teaching is not babysitting and not an easy career with a lengthy time off. Most colleagues I know either had a summer job (often tutoring or summer school), were working on an advanced degree, and/ or attending seminars and workshops to keep skills current, and add new techniques to the repertoire. At the same time all of them are beginning to plan for the next year. Throughout the college years the college student has been in a classroom enough before and during student teaching to realize if this challenging career is the one to personally pursue. A friend of mine upon completing her student teaching admitted that the classroom was not a place she wanted to be and immediately changed course after thinking education was where she wanted to be for most of her life. Reality set in as to what all is expected of an educator. I have seen this on several occasions since starting my career. Of course there is the test for certification, required in some form by each state, that also must be completed before entering the field and begin the job hunt. It weeds out even more candidates. There is so much that test does not reflect such as values, organization skills, or even character of the person. This certification testing is required and done each time a teacher moves to a new state and requires a fee.
When a teacher is hired no matter where, there is orientation. The philosophy and procedures of a district and school start the continuing education process, usually paid for by the educator. In some states there are requirements of an advanced degree in as little as 5 years. This is along with all the daily expectations of classroom educators and whatever yearly expectations are part of a contract. Like the medical profession there is continually new information to add to the educator’s repertoire. Everyone of course is aware of the amount of technology that is continually updated. During those student days off – educators are looking and studying student work to adjust and address specific issues.
Tenure has become an “inflamed” word. Tenure is not carte blanche for job security. As in any job an educator can be let go for many reasons. Please realize that continuing education expectations including yearly requirements of workshops and some form of evaluation involve every educator.
There may be educators I don’t agree with what they have to say but with very few exceptions in the roles of a parent and educator I have not met “bad” teachers.
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week. Thank an educator and let those professionals know they are making a difference and their efforts are noticed.