In This Issue:

1. What kind of smarts should schools be developing?

2. How serious are we about civic education?

3. Handling confrontations with particularly challenging students

4. Addressing various parent concerns

5. Twelve big ideas in science

6. Keys to increasing classroom rigor

7. Embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, and shame

8. Insights from Germany on assessing teachers’ professional competence

9. Finding numbers in the real world

 

Quotes of the Week

“Traditionally, some educators subscribed to the notion that it doesn’t much matter what students study, as long as it’s hard and they don’t like it.”

Daniel Willingham (see item #1)

 

“Academic rigor is determined not just by what is taught, but how it is taught and how it is assessed.”

A report from the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media (quoted in item #6)

 

“Adopting higher standards is easy. Complaining about them is even easier. The bottom line is that while the overheated debate over Common Core has raged on, far too little attention has been paid to the heavy lift being asked of America’s teachers – and the conditions under which they are being asked to change familiar, well-established teaching methods. Meeting those higher standards is agonizingly difficult work. It requires patience and realism, two things that have never been particularly abundant in American education.”

            Robert Pondiscio in “The Real Battle for Common Core Begins” in The Education

Gadfly, September 16, 2015 (Vol. 15, #36), http://bit.ly/1OL4zIy

 

“Struggling teachers sometimes hold the belief that respect is something that should automatically be afforded them because they are the adult authority figure in the room, rather than something they must earn through a series of interactions over time.”

            Grace Dearborn (see item #3)

 

“When failure doesn’t hurt, it’s not failure. If you’re a leader who wants to be helpful around failure, then stand in front of your team and say, ‘We failed, and this is what it felt like.’”

            Brené Brown (see item #7)

 

“Shame needs three things to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgment.”

            Brené Brown (ibid.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. What Kind of Smarts Should Schools Be Developing?

            Intelligence has two components, says Daniel Willingham (University of Virginia) in this article in The Atlantic. The first is mental horsepower – how many pieces of information we can keep in mind simultaneously and how efficiently we can crunch them. One way of measuring this is to ask someone to recite a list of digits backwards. For years, many parents and teachers have seen the mind as an all-purpose muscle that gets stronger when it’s pushed to perform difficult tasks. “Traditionally, some educators subscribed to the notion that it doesn’t much matter what students study, as long as it’s hard and they don’t like it,” says Willingham. “Through the early 20^th century, educational theorists believed students should study Latin not because it was a useful language, but because studying it trained the brain to think logically.” That approach is widely disdained these days – schooling should be relevant and engaging! – but there is a 21^st-century version of the mental horsepower theory: schools should be in the business of developing students’ thinking skills.

The second component of intelligence is like a database – the knowledge we’ve absorbed (vocabulary, science, history, literature) and the skills we’ve acquired (reading, writing, calculating, problem-solving). Memorizing large amounts of information was once considered a major goal of schooling, but with ready access to all sorts of knowledge on the Internet, learning a bunch of facts is widely regarded as passé.

Willingham disagrees. He cites recent research showing that schooling has very little effect on mental horsepower, even for those who are educated for many years and attend the most effective schools. “Instead,” says Willingham, “schooling makes students smarter largely by increasing what they know, both factual knowledge and specific mental skills like analyzing historical documents and learning procedures in mathematics.”

            This research has two implications. First, says Willingham, we need to make sure the curriculum – the knowledge and skills being taught – will be valuable to students in the future. Downstream relevance isn’t always obvious – for example, a student who grows up to become an English teacher may not be called upon to use plane geometry, solid geometry, or trigonometry, but having learned them may help with visualizing spatial relationships among objects – an important life skill.

            The second implication is that schools need to go beyond coverage and orchestrate spiral review of the most important information to make sure it’s retained. “Revisiting subjects can protect against forgetting,” says Willingham, “and sustained study over several years can help make certain knowledge permanent.”

 

“When Knowledge Is Unforgettable” by Daniel Willingham in The Atlantic, August 12, 2015,

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/08/the-power-of-curriculum/400976/; Willingham can be reached at [email protected].

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2. How Serious Are We About Civic Education?

            In this Education Gadfly article, Robert Pondiscio and Kate Stringer bemoan the fact that only one-quarter of 8^th graders scored proficient on a recent NAEP assessment of civic knowledge. “The public-spirited mission of preparing children for self-government in a democracy was a founding ideal of America’s education system,” say Pondiscio and Stringer. But a recent Fordham Foundation study of the mission, vision, and values statements of the hundred largest U.S. school districts found that 59 percent failed to mention the idea of preparing students for active participation as citizens. Some examples:

-   “FBISD exists to inspire and equip all students to pursue futures beyond what they can imagine.” Fort Bend, Indiana

-   “Every student will have the academic, creative problem solving, and social emotional skills to be successful in college and career.” Montgomery County, Maryland

-   “The mission of the District School Board of Pasco County is to provide a world class education for all students.” Pasco County, Florida

-   “With a caring culture of trust and collaboration, every student will graduate ready for college and career.” Atlanta, Georgia

-   “Omaha Public Schools prepares all students to excel in college, career, and life.” Omaha, Nebraska

By contrast, here are a few mission statements that include citizenship as a key component:

-   “Students will be equipped to become contributing, compassionate citizens of the United States as it resides in an increasingly global community.” Anne Arundel County, Maryland

-   “Public Education is the foundation to a democratic society; it is essential that BCPS develops an informed, engaged, and responsible citizenry.” Broward County, Florida

-   “We believe that public education is essential to the survival of a democratic society.” Henrico County, Virginia

-   “Public education is essential for the improvement of society and democracy.” Wichita, Kansas

-   “To provide an education and the supports that enable each student to excel as a successful and responsible citizen.” Hillsborough County, Florida.

“In fairness, a district’s mission statement may not offer much insight into the nature of its instructional practices, the civic values that are communicated to students, or the full range of outcomes sought by each school system,” say Pondiscio and Stringer. “But at some point, leaders and stakeholders in each district sat down and attempted to craft and approve a set of ideals, values, and goals that ostensibly reflect the aspirations of their communities… They simply mirror the priorities established at the local level for K-12 education, where preparation for citizenship is not a high priority.”

“On Constitution Day, In Search of the Public Mission of Schools” by Robert Pondiscio and Kate Stringer in The Education Gadfly, September 16, 2015 (Vol. 15, #36),

http://edexcellence.net/articles/on-constitution-day-in-search-of-the-public-mission-of-schools

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3. Handling Confrontations with Particularly Challenging Students

            In this AMLE Magazine article, consultant Grace Dearborn list some qualities exhibited by teachers who still love their work after 15-20 years in the classroom:

-   They use effective tools for handling student misbehavior.

-   They empathize with negative experiences students may be having outside the classroom that cause disruptive school behaviors.

-   They aren’t discouraged by occasional bad days or bad moments.

-   They don’t see themselves as failures when a student doesn’t succeed or change.

“Still,” says Dearborn, “managing difficult student behaviors eventually sucks the energy from most teachers, no matter how talented or experienced… So how can we help our most challenging students without completely depleting ourselves?”

            Students with serious behavior problems have learned the hard way that adults are not trustworthy – in fact, will eventually abandon or abuse them, physically or psychologically. Deep inside, these kids hope to find an exception – a genuinely trustworthy grown-up – so they act out, putting teachers through multiple tests to see if they might be the one. “We are only human,” says Dearborn, “and in the face of such a protracted onslaught of negative behaviors that gets worse over time no matter how safe, structured, and consistent we are, no matter what consequences we use, we eventually give up. Eventually we get exhausted… And now we are just another statistic in their growing body of evidence against adults.”

            When teachers are on the verge of giving up, Dearborn suggests an unusual strategy: “Imagine that all your students have an invisible subtitle running along in front of them that is communicating to the adults in their lives what they really need. Everything else – the nonsense that comes out of their mouths and bodies during difficult interactions – is just noise, interference meant to get in the way of our reading and responding to their subtitle.” For example, what the student says is, “This is stupid! Why we gotta do this?” The subtitle reads, This is hard for me. Help me to succeed and let me save face, too. Responding to the subtitle, a teacher might say, “Yes. I know this is hard and sometimes hard things feel unnecessary and we want to avoid them. But I’m here to help. Let’s work it out.”

            Dearborn admits that students’ outbursts and resistance often tax our patience. “When that happens,” she says, “it’s harder for me to stay calm enough to remember to look for the subtitle, especially if I feel personally attacked.” At such times, she conjures up several default subtitles:

-   Please help me!

-   Don’t give up on me!

-   What can I do right now to behave better?

“Any one of these helps me stay calm and respond productively to their misbehavior instead of unintentionally escalating the confrontation,” she says. “Remember, my baseline assumption is that student outbursts are tests to pass, not a show of disrespect. Consequently, it’s not personal; it’s a cry for help.”

            Dearborn recommends a six-step process when a student irrationally resists a request to do something (or stop doing something):

• Assume the best. “I can pass the test by being safe, structured, and consistent,” she says. “The student wants me to pass the test.”

• Soft eyes, soft voice. Be calm, Dearborn advises. “I need that calm to be expressed in both my verbal and body language. If I concentrate on keeping the muscles around my eyes soft, or neutral, my voice will naturally follow.”

• Offer a choice. Kids need to know that they can comply or continue to resist, and whatever they choose, there will be a consequence.

• Respect the choice made. This is not personal, says Dearborn. “I am not being attacked or disrespected. It is just a test.”

• Give the consequence. This can be positive or negative, depending on the choice the student makes.

   • Escalate the choice. If the student chooses not to comply, another more uncomfortable consequence is calmly proffered. This continues until the student complies – or is temporarily removed from the interaction or class.

“Struggling teachers sometimes hold the belief that respect is something that should automatically be afforded them because they are the adult authority figure in the room,” says Dearborn, “rather than something they must earn through a series of interactions over time. Or, from the student’s perspective, a series of tests being passed over time… [J]ust because students don’t change on the outside (behavior), that doesn’t mean they aren’t changing on the inside (belief). Some kids are battling a lifetime of not being able to trust adults. Some kids need to experience more than one year of consistent, loving accountability in order to internalize trust.”

 

“Compassionate Discipline: Dealing with Difficult Students” by Grace Dearborn in AMLE Magazine, September 2015 (Vol. 3, #2, p. 8-11), www.amle.org; Dearborn can be reached at [email protected].

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4. Addressing Various Parent Concerns

            In this article in Principal Leadership, New Jersey social worker/family therapist Brett Novick lists some troublesome parent behaviors and suggests ways to deal with each one:

            • My child is never at fault – “Stick to the facts,” advises Novick. “Document your conversations… Documentation can help clarify facts, reduce emotional exaggeration, and avoid legal disputes.” To prevent teachers, administrators, and other adults being played off against each other, he suggests including the student in meetings.

            • The teacher or administrator must be wrong about what my child did – Let the parent have his or her say first, says Novick. “Encouraging parents to share their worries first enables you to remind them in a firm-yet-understanding tone that the rules of the school apply even if they don’t necessarily agree with all of them.” It’s helpful to have another educator present at the meeting.

            • He’s your problem now – “Some parents are drowning in a world of financial despair and/or emotional, physical, or family issues,” says Novick. “First, see if these survival concerns are being met.” If the parent isn’t in a position to help with a child’s issues, work with the school counselor to find rewards, motivations, and consequences within the school.

            • Second-guessing teachers and administrators – Don’t always assume the worst and avoid getting defensive, says Novick. The parent may be using questions about the curriculum and other matters to understand what’s going on and feel part of a child’s education. “The more information that these parents have on the front-end, the less apt they are to question how things were handled on the back-end,” he says.

            • Harassing, intimidating, or bullying behaviors – When parents are in this mode, Novick advises against using e-mail (it can come across as confrontational) or picking up the phone while angry. Timeliness is also important – getting to the parent with the school’s side of the story before the child has a chance to stoke anger at home.

            • My child will attend school when he or she chooses to – Look for patterns in children’s absence, advises Novick, as well as signs of abuse or neglect, and provide missed work for chronically absent children.

            • Passive-aggressive behavior – Becoming too friendly with parents – accepting a daily cup of coffee or a bagel, chatting on social media or the soccer field, accepting a compliment that includes an invidious comparison with another educator  – can come back to haunt you, says Novick. Maintain appropriate boundaries at all times.

            • My child is being victimized by teachers (or other students) – Steer the conversation away from blaming or victimizing, says Novick. “Remind them that it is the behavior that you are addressing. You are not condemning their child’s character or, consequently, their parenting skills.” In addition, it’s important for the school to work toward consistent discipline policies from classroom to classroom.

            • Helicoptering – Be proactive in contacting these parents and affirming their deep and passionate concern for their children’s well-being. “These parents are concerned that their child will not be able to handle the proverbial ‘real world’ without their intervention,” says Novick. “When you report successes to the parents, it helps them to realize that they do not have to do everything for their child.”

            • Distrustful of public schools, administrators, and teachers – “Don’t focus on being right or wrong,” says Novick. “Focus on what is right for the student.” And look for face-saving “win-win” solutions.

 

“The 10 Most Challenging Types of Parents – and How to Work With Them” by Brett Novick in Principal Leadership, September 2015 (Vol. 15, #1, p. 44-48), no e-link available

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5. Twelve Big Ideas in Science

            For this BuzzFeed article, Tom Chivers asked twelve prominent scientists, “If civilization was destroyed, what scientific information would you pass on to the survivors?” Here’s what each of them said:

            • Conservation of energy – “Energy is always conserved, never created or destroyed. Life and the processes that surround us in the world and the universe are governed by the constant flow of energy transforming from one state to another, never disappearing but emerging in a different form… Philosophically, this is also a very nice sentiment when thinking of those who have died. Their energy, stored up in their mass, will never be destroyed; it will be conserved and transformed into something else or will simply remain constant.”    Ceri Brenner, physicist

            • DNA – “The elegant double-helix structure of the DNA molecule, found inside nearly every living cell, is the most important piece of scientific information that humanity would need to know. Made up of just four letters, A, T, C, and G, representing four different chemicals, this is the very Code of Life. These four letters, and the order in which they are arranged, can tell us about our past, present, and future.”    Buddhini Samarasinghe, molecular biologist

            • The scientific method – “The natural world is not governed by whimsical gods, but is essentially mechanical and can therefore be understood and then predicted by people, using careful observation, experimentation, and measurement, and importantly by testing your explanations to try to refute them.”    Lewis Dartnell, astrobiologist

            • The scientific method II – “A scientific theory must put forward a comprehensive explanation for something we observe in nature, provide strong evidence for that explanation, and provide the means with which to make predictions about the aspect of the world it explains, which we can then test by observation.”    Alom Shaha, physics teacher

            • The scientific method III – “There is nothing more important than being a curious skeptic. Demand evidence for everything and expect others to demand it of you. Tell the world what you’ve learned, no matter how small, and if it stands up to scrutiny, then you’re on the right track. Get this right and you will change the world.”    Samuel Godfrey, biochemist

            • Infection prevention and control – “Illness is often caused by tiny lifeforms, invisible to the naked eye, which can be transmitted by breath, touch, and body fluids; transmission can be minimized by keeping waste out of water supplies, and by cleaning people and surfaces who have been in contact with a sick person or creature.”    Susannah Fleming, engineer

            • Generating electricity – “Spin a magnet inside a loop of copper and the form of energy you create can provide you with light, heat, food, and clean water… The ability to provide consistent power in a useful form meant that suddenly we could keep houses at a controlled temperature year-round, keep food fresh for longer, and communicate with each other over long distances, to name but a few of the more basic applications. It drives our farms, our factories, and our trains, it dominates the way we share information and has largely replaced our physical currencies.”    Duncan Casey, chemist/biophysicist/engineer

            • The harmonic oscillator model – The motion of an object goes back and forth or up and down in a pattern known as a sinusoidal wave. “[W]e see a lot of harmonic motion in real life: the pendulum inside a grandfather clock, the motion of a diving board, or the distinct sound of resonance when you turn up the bass in your car radio…. [Also] electronic circuits, the motion of individual atoms and molecules, and even quantum field theory.”   Ying Lia Li, doctoral student in optomechanics

            • Euler’s identity – This encapsulates a lot of deep concepts – arithmetic, pi, complex numbers, logarithms, zero, one. It goes like this: e^iπ + 1 = 0.    Greig Cowan, particle physicist

            • The atomic hypothesis – “We and everything that we see around us are made of the same three unimaginably tiny particles, born out of violently exploding stars hundreds of millions of years ago… With knowledge like this, and the understanding that we’re all just extremely fortunate lumps of the same matter, one might hope for a relatively peaceful post-scientific world.”    Liam Gaffney, nuclear physicist

            • Atomic theory II and human imagination – “[E]verything in the world [is] an arrangement of atoms. These atoms are like the Lego bricks of our universe, except that there is also a game-playing element to it. There are rules that cannot be broken. Knowing the rules of the game and how the Lego bricks interact with themselves and others helps us make sense of everything – why glass is transparent, why ceramic cracks, why ice is less dense than liquid water… We know what we know, but our imagination takes us to places beyond that which we have already established, and on to new discoveries, theories, and explanations. If all scientific knowledge were destroyed, the next generation of creatures would find a way. They always do. We always do. Evolution, survival of the fittest, adapting to live, it’s still all science, but by trial and error. Experimentation. Imagination. Maybe the next generation of creatures don’t need information. Maybe all they need is a little encouragement.”    Sujata Kundu, materials chemist

            • Human imperfection – “Basically, the human brain isn’t 100% rational, so if you want to achieve large groups of people working together, you need to know this and not assume everyone will pitch in because it’s the logical thing to do. Cognitive biases, group mentality, social hierarchies, differing motivations and experiences, these and more all mean that people can have wildly differing conclusions about what the ‘correct’ course of action is… People aren’t logical or rational by default, and it’s vitally important to remember this when trying to impart knowledge and guidance. Having some useful knowledge like atomic theory or the nature of gravity isn’t going to be much use if enough people don’t want to believe it.”

Dean Burnett, psychologist

 

“I Asked 12 Scientists: What Is the One Fact Humanity Needs to Know?” by Tom Chivers in BuzzFeed, August 27, 2015, http://bzfd.it/1Lrq93G

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6. Keys to Increasing Classroom Rigor

            In this American School Board Journal article, editor Del Stover suggests some ways to ensure academic rigor at the classroom level:

            • Increase the number of challenging courses. “Research shows that most students rise to the challenge of higher expectations,” says Stover, “so offering more academically rigorous courses is likely to produce results.” The Houston Independent School District has made a point of boosting the number of AP courses in all schools, with a requirement that students take the exams. (HISD has also increased the number of International Baccalaureate programs.) Over the last six years, there’s been a 64 percent increase in Houston students passing AP exams.

            • Introduce academic rigor at an early age. “Waiting until high school to get tough is only going to backfire with students who are behind grade level in English and math,” says Stover. This means backwards-mapping from high-school exit standards at a college-and-career level all the way back to preschool.

            • Make sure everyone understands what on-grade-level instruction looks like. “Academic rigor is determined not just by what is taught, but how it is taught and how it is assessed,” says a report from the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media. Hamilton County, Tennessee, clarified academic rigor by describing grade-level expectations and what students should be doing to be on track for success.

            • Provide supports. It’s commonly believed that increasing rigor will lead to many students being frustrated, disengaging, and failing. But that will happen only if there’s a sink-or-swim philosophy of learning, says Stover. Effective schools assess frequently and, when difficulties are revealed, intervene quickly with targeted and efficient interventions.

            • Ensure equity. In de facto segregated, high-poverty schools, differentiation can be a proxy for lowering expectations, says Stover. If economic integration isn’t possible, educators need to be sure that all students are aiming at standards-based grade-level expectations.

 

“Up to the Challenge: Are You Doing All You Can to Provide Academic Rigor for Your Students?” by Del Stover in American School Board Journal, October 2015 (Vol. 202, #5, p. 42-43), http://bit.ly/1KujiCn; Stover can be reached at [email protected].

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7. Embarrassment, Guilt, Humiliation, and Shame

            In this interview with Belinda Luscombe in Time Magazine, author/professor Brené Brown discusses her new book, Rising Strong (Spiegel and Grau, 2015), which is about overcoming failure. There’s a lot of superficial thinking about failure these days, says Brown. “When failure doesn’t hurt, it’s not failure. If you’re a leader who wants to be helpful around failure, then stand in front of your team and say, ‘We failed, and this is what it felt like.’” She believes that people who overcome failure and tragedy have two helpful mindsets:

-   They’re comfortable being uncomfortable. “If you cannot manage discomfort,” says Brown, “that sends you barreling into perfectionism, blame, rationalizing – without taking away key learnings.”

-   They want to know what happened. “Men and women who rise strong are curious people,” she says. “They’re like, ‘What do I need to dig into?’”

Brown goes on to analyze what she calls the emotions of self-consciousness, each of which has its own profile:

-   Embarrassment – Mortifying, but I know I’m not alone.

-   Guilt – I did something bad.

-   Humiliation – I feel really bad, but I don’t think I deserve it.

-   Shame – I am bad. “Shame needs three things to grow,” says Brown: “secrecy, silence, and judgment.”

 

“8 Questions” An interview with Brené Brown by Belinda Luscombe in Time Magazine, September 21, 2015, http://time.com/4029029/10-questions-with-brene-brown/

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8. Insights from Germany on Assessing Teachers’ Professional Competence

            In this Peabody Journal of Education article, Franziska Bouley and six colleagues from German universities share their research on measuring the competence of prospective teachers on two dimensions:

Professional knowledge:

-   Content knowledge – A good grasp of their field;

-   Pedagogical content knowledge – Knowing students’ cognition, typical student errors, representations and explanations, and relevant tasks to be used as instructional tools.

Noncognitive aspects:

-   Belief system about teaching and learning – A growth versus fixed mindset;

-   Self-efficacy – A belief in one’s own skills and ability to make a difference;

-   Self-regulation – Reflection, self-monitoring, volition, motivation, planning, goals.

 

“Professional Competence of Prospective Teachers in Business and Economics Education: Evaluation of a Competence Model Using Structural Equation Modeling” by Franziska Bouley, Eveline Wuttke, Kathleen Schnick-Vollmer, Bernhard Schmitz, Stefanie Berger, Sabine Fritsch, and Jurgen Siefried in Peabody Journal of Education, Fall 2015 (Vol. 90, #4, p. 491-502), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1KqpXj0; Bouley can be reached at [email protected].

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9. Finding Numbers in the Real World

            In this article in Teaching Children Mathematics, Rebecca Klemm (a.k.a. The Numbers Lady) suggests that teachers send students on scavenger hunts for numbers in the classroom, on the playground, and in their neighborhoods. Some possibilities for students of different ages:

-   Taking photos of numbers – for example, shapes (triangles for three), names (classroom 4), quantities (six windows), and order (first-place ribbon);

-   Applications of larger numbers (a clock);

-   Finding a visual application of multiplication (a 5 x 4 array of windows);

-   What’s the largest number you can find? Estimate, then count it;

-   Look for relevant linkages of numbers to real-world objects – for example, animals, musical instruments, architectural features;

-   Ask “number link” questions – for example, What do Mount Rushmore and a ukulele have in common? (Four presidents, four strings) Have students submit their own questions from social studies, science, or art;

-   Have students make a collage from number links found in newspapers or magazines – for example, the picture of a two-hour parking zone sign.

“This activity is easily adaptable to a variety of environments and promotes the development of observational skills, number sense, and the ability to make interdisciplinary connections,” says Klemm.

 

“Number Link Challenges” by Rebecca Klemm in Teaching Children Mathematics, September 2015 (Vol. 22, #2, p. 120), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1NPny5k; Klemm can be reached at [email protected].

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