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IS SCHOOL REALLY
AS BAD AS I SAY?

 
Yes! Nearly everything that goes on in the classroom, from pre-school through post-graduate university, is as bad, or worse, than I say.

How do I know? Begin by reflecting on your own experience. The classroom is filled with behavior problems from A – Z, usually, at least tacitly, condoned by teachers and professors with no training in instructional theory, effective time or student management.

Some gross examples of common teacher-lead time wasters include:

• Arriving late
• Answering stupid questions that no one else can hear (Yes Virginia, there are MANY stupid questions)
• Passing out papers
• Writing on the blackboard with back to the audience
• Unclear and poorly posted assignments
• Asking questions to which the answers haven’t yet been given
• Emphasizing discussion among the 10% most verbal
• No regular accountability
• No clearly thought-out theory of instruction
• Trick questions
• Failure to teach to mastery
• Presenting material, then saying, "O.K.?" and moving on without any test to verify comprehension
• No measurable objectives
• Reviewing housekeeping data that should be clearly posted on web
• Pencil sharpening
• Shuffling through poorly organized notes
• Unrelated stories
• Allowing students to do "whatever..."
• Ending class five minutes early

What are the results of this mismanagement and dearth of sound instruction skills? Let’s take a look at a few comments from the November 26, 2006 New York Times Magazine article, What it Takes to Make a Student by Paul Tough:

In 2002, when No Child Left Behind went into effect, 13 percent of the nation’s black eighth-grade students were “proficient” in reading, the assessment’s standard measure of grade-level competence. By 2005 (the latest data), that number had dropped to 12 percent (reading proficiency among white eighth-grade students dropped to 39 percent, from 41 percent.) The gap between economic class isn’t disappearing, either: in 2002, 17 percent of poor eighth-grade students (measured by eligibility for free or reduced-price school lunched) were proficient in reading; in 2005, that number fell to 15 percent.

Freaky, isn’t it: 13%, 12%, 39%, 41%, 15%. What in the world is going on?  Can you imagine what happens to all these low-scoring children. Do they become productive members of the community, able to hold jobs with a future? Why aren’t our children learning how to read?

The simplest and most straightforward answer is this: most teachers haven’t been taught how to manage classrooms or teach (Where would they have gone to learn? See Schools of Education, what's wrong, and how to fix them).

Most (over 50%) of what goes on in MOST classrooms is a waste of time, or worse.  I am reminded of one of the unofficial mottoes of the United States Coast Guard Academy: Here, we will not waste your time. Were that this was a motto taken seriously in most classrooms.

Were that this were so in most of our classrooms.

What does a good classroom look like? How can children be taught to read and succeed academically. Many of the answers lie in the best award-winning education site available today www.brainsarefun.com. This site is free always, requires no sign up, and eschews platitudes and clichés for actual solutions.

As Paul Tough's article so succinctly concludes: "We now know... if only 20 or 30 or 40 percent of the country's poor and minority students are proficient, then we will need to accept [that our] failure was not an accident and was not inevitable, but was the outcome we chose."

If you believe all children should master how to read, then it’s time to stop making excuses and choose a different outcome. But we aren't choosing a different outcome.

As Rody Crew, superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the nation's fourth-largest school district puts it, "six years after the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act I'm faced with facts like these:

• One-third of American eighth graders cannot perform basic math. That means more than a million thirteen-year-olds can't do the simplest calculations needed to buy a candy bar or ride a bus.

• One-third of all teachers leave the profession in their first three years; by five years, half of them have left.

• A black child in Washington, D.C., has less than a 30 percent chance of learning how to read before he turns ten.

• The odds that any given ten-year-old in a large American city can read are about fifty-fifty, and six in ten for the nation as a whole.

• Only one in five students entering college are prepared for college-level work in math, reading, writing, and biology.

"Something does look funny. Tennessee claims an 87 percent "proficient" level among its fourth graders; the NAEP puts the number closer to 27 percent. Idaho says 90 percent, but a federal test says 41 percent. New York boasts 85 percent; the national assessment is 36 percent. On and on it goes. Oklahoma's list of schools that "need improvement" shrank by 85 percent in a year. How? The state simply lowered its standards. Beyond whether or not the numbers are real is the question of what those numbers would actually prove even if they were. NCLB gave educators across America the task of creating numbers, not functional citizens.

The future will swallow us if we keep on with this game."

For more see:

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND and READING FIRST

WHAT'S WRONG WITH SCHOOLS OF EDUCATION, and some solutions

EFFECTIVE TEACHER TRAINING

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: IS SCHOOL AS BAD AS I SAY? © June 2007 by Rory Donaldson. All rights reserved. In order to help reverse the tide of academic failure and optimize school success, parents and teachers may copy articles, tools and software for individual, non-commercial use at no charge. Contents may not be sold or repackaged in any manner without the written permission of Rory Donaldson. Since all material is copyrighted, please ensure that this entire copyright notice and contact information continues to be attached to each article you download. Mr. Donaldson appreciates the feedback. Additional academic-success articles and tools may be viewed and downloaded at no charge by logging on to brainsarefun.com. New titles are being released regularly. Suggestions and comments encouraged, email: roryd@brainsarefun.com.

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