What do Schools need to Succeed?

What makes schools succeed?  We typically measure the success of a school through standardized tests and graduation rates.  These measures help the community at large determine whether a school is successful or not, but what helps a school succeed?  I’m sure many would argue that schools succeed because of time spent in the classroom and the quality of the teacher, among other things.  I don’t deny that these factors are important, but I believe that schools could be even more successful if they had more autonomy, if there was more collaboration and cooperation among and between teachers and students, and if the school had a culture and climate that focused on students. 

If every school had autonomy to make their own decisions, and had strong leadership to make good decisions, I believe our schools would be much more successful.  For seven years I taught in a school that had autonomy.  We were able to make all our own financial and curricular decisions.  We thought about the current student body, and made decisions based on what our students needed.  We didn’t have to use textbooks and we didn’t have to do what every other school around us was doing.  We developed our own curricula to meet the needs of our students, and our students were successful.  Success can be seen as evidenced by test scores (http://arch.k12.hi.us/PDFs/ssir/2011/charter/SSIR149-C.pdf) and I believe the progress we made as a school was because of the local power the school had. 

I take this experience and compare it to my current position.  I work in a traditional school district where the superintendent or other district administrators must approve almost all curricular changes that teachers want to make prior to changes being made.  Even my principal lacks power to make certain changes.  Schools aren’t allowed to decide what materials are best to meet their students’ needs, the decision needs to be based on what’s best for the district, even if the needs of the school are different.  My school is currently labeled as a focus school, a new label in Michigan as part of NCLB.  Even though we need to make changes to help our lower achievers be more successful, we have so many hoops to jump through that I’m not sure if/when changes will be made.  If we had autonomy to make our own decisions, we might be able to reach more of our students.  Autonomy is so important that an entire section of this paper has been devoted to it.  After looking at many different schools and examining different factors, the authors find that schools with autonomy tend to perform better than schools that don’t have autonomy.   Giving autonomy to schools allows schools to develop and assess students on their curricula and make appropriate adjustments so that students succeed.  Meier (2002) and his staff believe in autonomy so much that they recommend “Decisions about curriculum, pedagogy, and scheduling … be made by on-site professionals” (p. 65).  This needs to become a common practice in our schools.

Eisner (2001) argues that if we want our students to be successful, we need to teach them how to have quality conversations.  Since conversing is a skill that is needed in almost all aspects of a person’s life, we need to teach students how to talk with one another.  When students are able to talk about issues, both curricular and non-curricular, they build their critical thinking skills (Eisner, 2001).  When we teach our students how to have discussions (like in this lesson plan on literature circles) we give them conversational strategies, teach them how to relate to others, and how to organize their thoughts.  If students can articulate their thoughts verbally, they will also have an easier time writing down their thoughts and they will be able to process more difficult material.    

Conversations are also important when thinking about teachers.   Teachers need to have opportunities to talk with one another- about students, lessons, and everyday school business.  If teachers have built in collaboration time, when they can discuss curricular issues, schools are more likely to end up with an aligned curriculum.  Schools will likely be more successful if teachers have time to visit each other’s classrooms, talk about and reflect on teaching styles, and provide each other with feedback and support (Meier, 2002).  Our students will be more successful when teachers have opportunities to collaborate and improve their instruction.  

Lastly, and probably most importantly, schools will succeed when they have a positive culture and climate.  Schools need to be small with small class sizes so that teachers have the opportunity to know their students well- academically and personally (Meier, 2002). When a school has a strong and positive culture, students can surpass many expectations.  Baruti Kafele is a principal in New Jersey who has turned around a poor performing high school.  He has established high expectations along with respect for and knowledge of all of his students.  When students feel cared for and acknowledged they are willing to rise to high expectations.  This video provides a glimpse at how Kafele has shaped the culture of his school.   In the book Transforming School Culture,  (Muhammad, 2009) school culture is described as “the set of norms, values, and beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, symbols and stories that make up the ‘persona’ of a school” (p. 12).  Schools that have a strong culture and communicate the expectations, values, and beliefs to students are more likely to see their students succeed.  Students know when they are cared about and when their teachers are looking out for their best interest.  If the school can support each student, then students will push themselves to meet the expectations because they know they won’t be working on their own. 

If schools had the ability to make autonomous decisions, worked to build collaboration with students and teachers, and established a school culture that encouraged and supported students, our schools would be successful.  While we may have to measure success based on test scores, that shouldn’t be our only measuring stick.  If schools can work together to provide students with the skills they need as individuals and provide all of the support needed for students to achieve, then we have truly helped our students succeed.  The success of schools needs to be measured not only by test scores, but also on how schools work together internally to support their students. 

References:

Eisner, E.  (2001).  What does it mean to say a school is doing well?  Phi Delta Kappan,

82 (5): 367-372. 

Meier, D.  (2002).  Chapter 3.  The Power of their Ideas:  Lessons for America from a

Small School in Harlem.  Boston, MA: Beacon Press

Muhammad, A.  (2009).  Transforming School Culture:  How to Overcome Staff

Division.  Bloomington, IN:  Solution Tree Press. 

What's important when teaching character education?

Morals relate to the principals of right and wrong behavior (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moral).  In the context of schools, I feel that students should learn to be respectful, tolerant, cooperative, and responsible for their words and actions.  When considering a teacher’s responsibility in teaching morals to students, teachers should serve as models of moral behavior and need to teach expected behaviors explicitly.  Students also need to discuss moral issues to develop their own understandings and viewpoints of critical issues.  Most importantly, a relationship needs to be established between the teacher and students in order for learning to be successful. 

            Modeling is important when teaching moral behaviors (Noddings, 2002).  If students see teachers acting morally, they are more likely to replicate those actions.  Students can also be models for each other.  The more often a student sees positive behaviors, the more likely he/she is to engage in similar behaviors.  Teacher modeling is important, but I believe that student modeling is even more important and is more effective in changing behavior.  Students want to be like their peers.  This is one of the reasons my school uses videos of student behavior to affect overall behavior.  As part of our Positive Behavior Support system, we use models as a way of instruction.  About every two weeks, a new teacher/student video is sent out to the faculty to share with their students.  The videos show students and faculty modeling appropriate classroom, bathroom, and playground behavior.  Because students are involved in making the videos, they have more buy-in in repeating the positive behaviors.  Students are able to see their friends and peers in the videos and are more willing to use positive behaviors as well.  Other schools have used this method as well.  This video shows students acting respectfully in the library and includes an explanation of the positive behavior.  When students see their peers in videos like these, they are more likely to emulate that same behavior.

             

            Explicit instruction is another key element when teaching morals.  Noddings (2002) contends that students need to practice in order to develop morals.  In order to practice, students need to be taught explicitly what their behaviors should look like.  If we expect our students to meet specific expectations and to work with others, we need to teach students what the behaviors look like.  We cannot rely solely on modeling because there are nuances to behaviors that students may not pick up. We need to explain to students what working collaboratively looks like and sounds like.   We can also use the curriculum to help support the teaching of morals.  Texts provide numerous examples of people acting morally or immorally.  When we use these texts to talk to and teach students about moral behaviors, they are able to see many examples of the behaviors in practice.  Concepts become more concrete and less abstract, making them easier to understand and implement.  TRIBES is a program that focuses on character education using explicit instruction.  Students learn morals through direct teacher instruction and active engagement in character-focused activities.  Students have the opportunity to practice and explain what they have learned using the lessons. 

Explicit behaviors should not only be taught and modeled, but students should also discuss morals.  Noddings (2002) considers discussion to be the most critical element in teaching morals.  These discussions promote “disciplined, open-minded, and critical” thinking which increases dialogue between students and faculty (Haydon, 2005).  When students have the opportunity to discuss morals, they learn how to clearly formulate and articulate their ideas.  Students also have the opportunity to challenge others’ ideas and learn about different viewpoints.  Discussion about morals can lead to greater understanding and accepting of those who are different.  Discussions can “promote the development of respect, willingness to listen and tolerance” (Haydon, 2005).  Discussing controversial issues also help students learn how to support their opinions with evidence and analyze others’ positions (Noddings, 2002).  This helps students think more critically and helps them organize their thoughts clearly and succinctly. 

            The last component of moral education is the most important.  In order to model and teach effectively, teachers need to have strong connections with their students.  Students need to know that their teachers care about and listen to them.  Building relationships between teachers and students is a main component of the care ethics ideal.  “Students must believe that the adults in their schools and communities care about them” (Noddings, 2002).  When students know that they are cared for, they are generally more willing to learn and are receptive to new ideas.  If we want to teach our students how to act morally, we need to connect with them and provide support so that they know they will be successful with anything they attempt.  They will see the value in respecting others because they have been shown respect from the adults that work with them.  This article from ASCD not only explains the history of character education, but also emphasizes the importance of building relationships with students while teaching morals.  It states, “Moral education that is merely intellectual misses the crucial emotional side of character, which serves as the bridge between judgment and action” (Likona, 1993).  Teaching values is not enough; we need to connect with our students in order to make a long-term difference.   

References:

Haydon, G. 2005. Moral Education. Randall Curren (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy

of Education. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Noddings, N. 2002. Chapters 1-3. Educating Moral Persons. New York: Teachers

College Press.

Inclusion for All

            The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates that as often as possible, students with disabilities

are educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily (idea.ed.gov).

Though this is a federal law, it has been interpreted and implemented in many different ways.  Many of these differences are based on personal opinion about how often and to what extent special education students should be in their regular education classrooms.  I believe that all children should have the opportunity to interact with their general education peers.  What that looks like however, should vary from student to student, and there should be no formula or protocol for teams to follow when making that decision.

            Special Education students should be in their regular classroom as often as appropriate.  It is as simple as that.  Certainly, there are students for whom their regular classroom isn’t appropriate but I would argue that often there is some point in the day when all students, no matter how disabled, could participate with their non-disabled peers.  Even students with significant behavioral or medical needs should have opportunities to interact with their classmates.  The time may be short and/or granted with numerous supports in place.  The student may have to earn time with his/her peers.  No matter what the situation, all students should have the opportunity to interact with their classmates.  The difference is the extent to which the interaction occurs- what is appropriate for students with mild difficulties is likely very different from students with significant disabilities.  Any placement decision needs to be made on an individual basis, and needs to be based on the students’ needs.    

            First, we will examine students with mild to moderate disabilities.  These are generally students who have learning disabilities, speech and language impairments, or are high functioning students with autism.  Students in this category often need additional academic or behavioral support to succeed in the classroom and require specific, individualized instruction that can be best provided in a special education setting, usually a resource room.  Students should only be pulled out of their classroom when it is absolutely necessary, otherwise they should be in their regular classroom with accommodations.  The typical resource room model pulls students out of their class to receive specialized instruction usually in reading, writing, and/or math.  The students then return to their classroom for instruction in science, social studies, and all of their specials.  They also participate in lunch and recess.  To claim that inclusion should not be allowed or is not beneficial for these students is ignorant.  Students with mild to moderate disabilities should be included because they are able to participate with their general education peers in almost all parts of their school day.  This process may be challenging, as referenced in this article in the New York Times, but the benefits students receive by being with their peers outweighs any challenge the teacher is faced with by having to provide accommodations. 

            When working with students with severe disabilities priorities may change, but inclusion is still beneficial.  According to Arnold and Dodge (1994), the team needs to determine whether the “essential elements” of the curriculum can be achieved when a student participates in general education classroom.  Sometimes it is not in the student’s best interests to participate in their regular classroom.  Other times, though, it is completely appropriate, but for non-academic purposes.  In cases where the general education curriculum will be too difficult for a student, even with accommodations, the team needs to look at how else the student can benefit.  “Academic achievement is not the only purpose of mainstreaming” (Arnold & Dodge, 1994); some students benefit from the social aspects of the classroom.  The regular education classroom allows students to interact with their non-disabled peers.  At minimum students with disabilities can practice their social skills and students without disabilities learn about compassion and acceptance as they get to know someone who is “different.”  Inclusion is advantageous for the students with and without disabilities.  Kids Together, Inc has created a list of ways in which inclusion is beneficial for all involved.  There are obvious benefits for including students with different abilities; when we exclude students with disabilities from the classroom we affect their learning and we do our other students a great disservice because they lack opportunities to interact with others who aren’t the same as them. 

            When working with students with significant disabilities, it is important to keep an open mind.  Some people believe students with significant disabilities should not be included in the regular education setting.  I believe there are ways to modify any curriculum so that all students can participate, though the level of participation and type of activity may look different.  When teaching a unit on communities, the special education teacher for my school and I used pictures to help our non-verbal student participate in the lessons.  Yes, his attention was shorter than my other students, and no he wasn’t doing the same work as my other students, but it was similar enough that he could participate and learn just like the rest of his peers.  Math and language arts activities can be modified as well.  Even if the rest of the class is working on multiplication, if a student can quietly work on counting or addition, that student should be able to join the class for math.  Independent reading time is a great time for inclusion because students are generally reading a wide variety of texts anyway, the student with disabilities would be reading a book at his/her level and not at grade level.  Reading while everyone else is reading would not cause any sort of disruption. 

            I can think of very few situations in which a student with disabilities would not interact at all with his/her non-disabled peers.  While it is part of IDEA and schools are legally mandated to oblige, I think that inclusion benefits all students and schools should work to include their special education students in as much of the school day as possible.  As Arnold and Dodge write, “The biggest benefit will come when disabled students feel they ‘belong’” (1994).  It is our job to include our special needs students in their general education classroom so that they can belong. 

References:

Arnold and Dodge, Ange.  ‘Is Full Inclusion of Disabled Students Desirable?’ from

Taking sides:  Clashing views on educational issues (11^th ed.).  J.W. Noll (ed.), pp. 242-255 (New York: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill). 

Accountability

            No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is our current accountability system.  It “holds all elementary schools, regardless of student characteristics, accountable for achieving proficient student scores in reading and math” (Rothstein & Jacobsen, 2006).  This system is not working for our students.  Schools are changing their curricular focus to emphasize reading and math because they are the subject areas being tested, and are limiting or eliminating instruction in other, non-assessed, curricular areas.  With the continuation of NCLB, we are likely to experience dire consequences in our schools because the focus is on improving test scores and not on teaching students.  According to Rothstein (2011), we are likely to see more test-prep, less proper identification of success, and less quality instruction in the classroom.  Rather than continuing with the status quo, we need to look at accountability differently.

Accountability should be based on the progress students are making toward standards.  The goal should always be proficiency, but not all students are going to be able to reach that mark, and not all students are going to reach the mark at the same time.  Rather than discouraging principals, teachers, and students who aren’t able to meet the high proficiency expectations, authors Stecher, Vernez, and Steinberg recommend focusing on a growth model in their evaluation of NCLB.  A system that focused on growth could eliminate feelings of discouragement and would be more realistic and attainable for students than our current system.  It would better meet the needs of individuals.  This idea matches Jennifer Jennings’ philosophy that we “identify schools as in need of improvement based on whether they are making less growth than expected” (2009).  If we assume that all students should make one year’s growth in one year’s time, then using various assessments, we can determine whether students are making those gains or not.  Schools that consistently don’t help their students grow need to be reevaluated and the instruction or curriculum needs to be changed. 

            One problem with our current accountability system is that we have set one expectation for all students to meet, even though our students are not starting at the same level.  If all students began at the same starting point, it would be reasonable to set the same ending point.  Since students start at different points, though, it makes the most sense to measure growth from beginning to end to determine how much progress a student has made.  The current model only hurts our lower performing students; the bar is set so high that it isn’t attainable and any progress being made goes unacknowledged.  This isn’t fair for students, teachers, or schools. 

            This flaw hits particularly close to home as a special education teacher.  My special education students have already been identified as struggling learners.  It seems unreasonable to have the same expectations for these students as for other students.  My responsibility is to help these students, who already start below grade level, to improve as much as possible.  However, to expect my students to perform at the same proficiency level as their “average” and “above average” peers is insensitive to the needs of these students.  While it is my responsibility to help my students achieve grade level standards and ideally to reach the same proficiency level as their peers, it is not likely to happen within the same amount of time as their peers.  My students will need more time and this is not acknowledged.  If we instead look at growth over time, I would be able to show that my students are learning content material.  My situation is not an isolated one.  In this video, the speaker explains how the district’s special education students were making great learning gains, but still fell short of meeting proficiency ratings.  As educators, we need to be acknowledging student successes, not punishing our schools for making progress.  Special education students may not be meeting grade level standards yet, but we should celebrate the tremendous growth that can be accomplished, even if it doesn’t match the student’s grade level expectations.  This growth is a significant accomplishment, but it goes unnoticed under the current system.

Richard Rothstein criticizes the results of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) when he explains that it has not helped to make better schools, but has produced “test-prep factories” (2011).  When instruction is so focused on test-prep, students miss the larger context of the curricula.  Subjects are broken down into small skills that can be drilled, rather than taught in depth so students develop a solid understanding of the content.  For students whom memorizing is difficult, they can often understand larger concepts when taught in context.  NCLB has taken much of this instruction away and replaced it with scripted programs, allowing for little additional explanation.  Rather than providing students with opportunities to make connections with the content they are learning these rigid scripts merely push isolated facts on our children.

The idea behind NCLB was correct- we need to hold our schools accountable for teaching students.  The way in which we’re holding schools accountable is misguided.  Rather than setting a proficiency level for all students to attain, we need to be looking at students’ progress over time.  This allows schools to set reasonable expectations for their students but also requires that schools provide quality instruction.  Setting guidelines for progress rather than proficiency would allow all students to acknowledge their successes.  I would also anticipate positive changes in the curriculum because the emphasis wouldn’t have to be on reading and math, all subject areas could be included.  In order to make this change, other/new assessments would need to be developed to measure growth.  Some assessments are already being developed, like this assessment tool from Battelle for Kids that allows schools to align their assessments with their curriculum instead of having to align the curriculum with the assessment.  Priority would also have to be given to some content areas over other, in order for the assessments to be not so overwhelming.  Changing to a growth model would not be an easy or quick fix, but I do believe it would be better for our students- and if it’s better for our students, then I believe we should put forth the effort to make it happen.

References:

Eduwonkette (aka Jennifer Jennings). 2009. Wish #2: The End of Proficiency Only Accountability 

     Systems. Education Week.

Rothstein, R., and Rebecca Jacobsen. 2006. The Goals of Education. Phi Delta Kappan 88 (4): 264-72.   

      [8]

Rothstein, R. 2009. Getting Accountability Right. Education Week. [4]

Rothstein, R. 2011. A bet over NCLB. working economics. September 26.

Writing Curriculum- A Communal Approach

            Since teachers and administrators have primary contact with students in an educational setting and are responsible for implementing the given curriculum, one may assume that they are the ones making all of the curricular decisions.  While this may be a reality in many instances, I don’t think it is a wise decision.  Even though teachers are responsible for implementing the curriculum and administrators directly oversee this implementation, I believe they should never be given full control to determine what should be taught in the classroom.  Curricular changes should be made by representatives of all of the vested parties including community members, politicians, parents, administrators, and teachers in order to ensure that students are provided with a balanced education.

Teachers shouldn’t have the only voice in developing curriculum because they already have a significant amount of power over how they interpret and implement a given curriculum.  One problem that can arise is teachers implement the given curriculum and students don’t make as much progress as is anticipated.  When this occurs, teachers decide on their own what changes to make about what they will teach.  Teachers begin to meet the needs of their students, rather than following the curriculum.  While this is not inherently bad, it diminishes the integrity of the curriculum because it is no longer being fully implemented and therefore any conclusions drawn from testing results are invalid.  When teachers begin to modify the curriculum, inconsistency develops and soon it’s possible that every teacher in a building is teaching something different.  The resulting problem is that there is no way to determine if the given curriculum is effective or not because it hasn’t been implemented with integrity.  Because teachers already have so much authority over what is taught in the classroom, I don’t believe they should be able to determine what should be taught in the classroom without input from other stakeholders.    

There are many stakeholders in education and all of the different members should have a voice.  Teachers and administrators may have a greater say in what decisions are made because they are in the classroom on a daily basis and can help make logical curricular decisions, especially about the scope and sequence of skills, but they also need input from those outside the classroom.  Parents, politicians, and community members are also vested in the education of children and should have a say in what is taught.  Amy Gutmann (2005) describes this ideal of all groups coming together as “conscious social reproduction.”  This idea is a form of democratic education in which all vested parties have a say in the decisions that are made about the curriculum; it ensures that one group doesn’t have more power over another.  This setup allows all parties that have an interest in education to provide their input without allowing one group to dominate the others. 

Though the editorial “Who should plan the curriculum” was written in 1961, it is still quite relevant for this discussion and aligns well with Gutmann’s ideal.  In this article from Educational Leadership C. Glen Haas determines that in order to develop a quality curriculum, the curriculum development team must include scholars who are knowledgeable about the curricular material, parents and other public citizens, teachers and students.  He believes that all of these stakeholders deserve to have a significant say in the development of a schools’ curriculum.  I agree; when all of the above parties have input we are more likely to have a well-rounded curriculum designed to meet the needs of our students. 

            Gutmann places teachers in the “State of Individuals” when she categorizes those vested in education.  She commends teachers for their ability to promote the “dual goals of opportunity for choice and neutrality among disputed or controversial conceptions of the good life” (2005).  Teachers, in general, are able to provide students with information from multiple points of view and then allow the students to make up their own minds.  They don’t try to push their own agenda, but instead provide all sides of the issue so students can be informed.  The downside to the “State of Individuals,” according to Gutmann, is that we live in a society that pushes political agendas and that it is nearly impossible for anyone to be neutral because of our society.  Teachers may try to be neutral in their presentation of material but our students are not likely to respond in a similar fashion.  Teachers and administrators need input from other interested parties to ensure that students are provided with information that allows them to participate in the larger society as informed citizens. 

            Unfortunately, it seems that many teachers and educational institutions do not see curriculum development the same way I do.  Turning Points- Transforming Middle Schools (http://www.turningpts.org/pdf/Curriculum.pdf) is a curricular program developed to help middle school faculties improve and enhance their curriculum.  The program’s five main principles, which I fully agree with, are that a curriculum should be grounded in understanding middle school students, should be based on what the students know and can do, students should be engaged in authentic work, assessments should show students can do important work, and the curriculum should be school-wide.  The issue with this program is that it only involves teachers and administrators.  Parental involvement is mentioned, but it does not seem to be a vital component.  State standards and the input of the greater community are not mentioned at all.  A school in the United Kingdom boasts that they use a team-based approach to curriculum development (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UlzXSiD8FE) but upon further review, its team members are made up of only teachers.  In both situations, I find it difficult to believe that students are prepared to join the greater society if the curriculum developers are not getting input from society about what should be taught in the classroom.  Curriculum development needs to be founded on the decisions of multiple stakeholders. 

            Yes, teachers need to be part of the curriculum development process.  The knowledge they bring from working in the classroom is invaluable.  However, teachers and administrators should not be the only ones developing curriculum.  The curriculum development process needs to be a team effort involving teachers, administrators, community members, politicians, and parents.  When all parties are involved the likely outcome is a more well rounded curriculum than could be developed if only teachers were involved, which is more beneficial for our students. 

References:

Gutmann, A. 2005. The Authority and Responsibility to Educate. Randall Curren (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Education (Malden, MA: Blackwell).

Student Centered vs. Social Efficiency

            When considering the different curriculum ideologies that have been formulated to help us think about education, it is easy to try to segment education into four separate and very different arenas.  This is not, however, how education works.  Most models of education are a combination of two or more of Schiro’s curriculum ideologies that work together to serve as the foundation of the greater school curriculum.  I would argue that we need to change our curricular focus as students get older.  First, we need to focus on students’ individual needs and as students get ready to join the work force, our focus becomes preparing students to be contributing members of society. 

            Currently it seems that we are focused only on preparing our students to be contributing members of society.  Standards dictate the end goal that we are working toward and all students, no matter how successful or unsuccessful they are, must work toward that goal.  In his “Changing Educational Paradigms” presentation, Ken Robinson refers to this as the ‘production line mentality.’  We tend to look at education as a factory where we bring replicas of students in, fill them with information, and send them on their way.  There is so much standardization that there is little room for individualization.  The problem with this model is that students are not all the same; they are not cookie-cutter replicas of one another. 

Especially in elementary school, students need to be given the opportunity to learn at their own pace.  Models like Reading and Writing workshop focus on meeting individual students’ needs while also looking at the bigger picture.  This approach allows teachers to help reach students where they are at developmentally and academically.  (Watch this video for an overview of the Reading and Writing Workshop with Lucy Calkins).  When I taught general education this approach was immensely helpful because I could target my instruction for small groups of similar learners and create lessons for individuals through conferring.  Now that I am back teaching special education I see the need for a learner centered curriculum to be even stronger.  Not only do my students have varied needs among themselves, their needs can be significantly different from their regular education peers.  The purpose of special education is to provide individualized instruction, but my students are not with me all day.  They participate in general education too, which means that the general education curriculum needs to be more flexible to meet their needs as well. 

            The workshop method seems to fall under Schiro’s Learner Centered ideology.  In this ideology, the curricular focus is the whole child- the child’s academic, social, and emotional well-being.  John Dewey built a school in Chicago with this ideology in mind.  Dewey’s school was built with a focus on students’ developing personalities; he used their individuality to build a greater community within the classroom that could transfer outside of the classroom.  As Dewey worked with students, he saw that learning could not be isolated into subject areas, nor did he find it beneficial to group students according to their age.  He responded by creating larger groups of students- students ages 4-7, ages 7-10, and ages 10-13.  This is similar to the structure of special education.  Students do not have to be grouped based on their age, but can instead be grouped by their ability.  This allows the teacher greater flexibility in determining how best to meet student needs (Kleibard, 2004). 

            Dewey wasn’t just limited to focusing on the needs of the students, though.  He also believed in preparing students to serve the greater community and wanted to prepare them to enter the work force.  This matches the philosophy of John Bobbitt, among others, who brought about the idea of social efficiency in education (Kleibard, 2004).  The focus of social efficiency is to teach young adults how to be “contributing members of society” (Schiro, 2008).  Bobbitt believed that education should focus on preparing students for their eventual career; students should be taught skills that they would use on a daily basis in the workforce and that they shouldn’t be taught skills that they wouldn’t use.  While it may have been common practice for one to choose a career and keep that career for a lifetime, it is commonplace for one to have multiple, quite different careers before one retires.  Reports such as this one from Business Wire (http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20040923005586/en/NYC-Professionals-Expect-Careers-Lifetime-NYU-Survey) estimate professionals will have three or more careers over their lifetime. 

I also find it difficult to believe that a child could determine, or that an adult could choose for a child, what career that child would enter.  What happens when the child changes his/her mind about the career he/she wants to pursue?  While choice may not have been an option in the past, choices are expected.  It wouldn’t work to limit a student even to one field of work in order to determine what skill set was necessary to teach.

            If we use a child-centered approach in elementary school and wait to use a social efficiency approach in middle and high school, our students are more likely to be prepared to make decisions that affect their future.  It should be expected that high school curriculum focus on job readiness skills or college preparedness skills.  Many schools already have programs like these in place and those programs are successful.  The University of California has developed a College Prep curriculum for a wide variety of subject areas.  They also provide supplemental material for students and teachers online at http://www.uccp.org/.  When we approach high school learning in this manner, we are preparing our students to better society, but we have also already met their individual needs in elementary school.  It’s the best of both worlds. 

            As much as I believe that education should be learner focused, I also believe that standards should be in place so that students are ready to be independent when they leave school.  There needs to be a transitional period where schools go from being more Learner Centered to focusing on being more Socially Efficient.  I doubt there will ever be a perfect blend of curricula to meet every students’ needs, but I think as educators we need to think about two specific, but very different, ideas- what skills does each student need to succeed for themselves and what skills does each student need to succeed for the larger community?  Sometimes these skills may overlap, but other times they may not.  As educators, we need to be cognizant of the needs and desires our younger students have, to help build their self-confidence and to help them grow as young adults.  As they get older, we need to ensure that they have skills they can use to secure and maintain a job so that they can give back to the community that supported them when they were younger.  I acknowledge that I have an idealized picture of the student-centered ideology.  I have had the opportunity to work in schools where it has flourished; I know it doesn’t work that well everywhere.  I also realize that many of my examples regarding social efficiency are quite dated when trying to apply the ideology to today’s school atmosphere.  Yes, I want my students to contribute to society, but I don’t feel that I have the right to tell them how.  I see my job as providing my students with as much information as possible so that they can decide how they want to contribute. 

Resources:

Kleibard, H. 2004.  ‘The Curriculum of the Dewey from The Struggle for the American

Curriculum (Taylor & Francis).

Kleibard, H. 2004.  ‘Scientific Curriculum-Making and the Rise of Social Efficiency’ from The

Struggle for the American Curriculum (Taylor & Francis).

Robinson, Ken.  Changing Educational Paradigms. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded

Schiro, S.  2008.  The Curriculum Ideologies.  Curriculum Theory (Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage Publishing). 

Decisions About Curriculum

    Who should make decisions about curriculum?  I wish I could say that teachers should be the ones deciding what should be taught in education, but I can't.  Even though teachers are responsible for implementing curriculum, I don't think most teachers are capable of determining what actual information should be taught.  I think of times when an entire faculty has had to work together to align curriculum.  Teachers have enough difficulty spiraling an already existing curriculum that trying to determine what should be taught over the course of thirteen years seems impossible.  I also think about the different curriculum ideologies that Shiro (2008) writes about in his "Introduction to the Curriculum Ideologies."  Unless all of the ideological thinking among teachers developing the curriculum is similar, the curriculum would be all over the place, much as it is today. 
    That said, I don't think that politicians should be making curriculum decisions at all.  Knowing that educators have and would have a difficult time developing curriculum, I don't think we should give power to people outside of the education field.  I believe that politicians have a vested interest in education, but I think it's to serve their own interests, not necessarily to better serve the better interests of the students in schools.  What concerns me the most is the haphazard nature that some politicians seem to have when handling such a huge responsibility.  In "Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change" (McKinley, 2010), we learn that the Texas Board of Education did not consult any historians, sociologists, or economists when they were revising their state curriculum, even though they were making changes to how history, sociology, and economy were taught.    
    I think that curricular changes should be a collaborative effort among all involved parties and that those in education should have a stronger voice, but not the only voice.  I also believe that data should be a large part of the discussion.  Data can be a disliked word in the current age of Response to Intervention, and similar programs, but it plays an important role in education.  When deciding what should be taught in language arts, for instance, data should be used to determine what aspects of typical language arts curricular are most effective.  Hopefully this would lead to a more balanced approach where all aspects of literacy are focused on equally. Maybe the we could avoid the phonics vs. whole language debate, and end up with a curriculum that teaches students both. 
    Collaboration, among multiple parties, could also help resolve some of the ongoing disputes about what should or shouldn't be included in a curriculum.  No curriculum will ever satisfy everyone and I don't know if it's possible to develop a curriculum that doesn't offend someone.  In an ideal world, we could develop a curriculum that was built upon the facts, without being colored by one's political, religious, or other strong views.  Unfortunately, this won't happen.  If curriculum is developed collaboratively, with a diverse group of individuals who are looking out for the needs of the students, then maybe we can develop content that is as accurate as possible and is reflective of our American population.  If our curriculum is to be effective it needs to be reflective of our students, and the only way to do that is to be developed by a group of people that is also reflective of our students.  This issue gets at the main topic of Stolzenberg's "He Drew a Circle that Shut Me Out" (1993).  The plaintiffs in the case felt that the school district had not considered their needs when choosing a reading curriculum and parents were upset because they felt the reading text infringed on their religious beliefs.  Even though the plaintiffs ultimately lost the case, such a case could have been avoided if the views of the parents had been considered when the local school district had been developing the curriculum.
    I am not saying that school districts are obligated to, nor should they address the beliefs of all of the people in their local school district , but this case was not about one single family, it involved multiple families.  If the district had thought more carefully about their "clientele," they could have chosen a different textbook that met their curricular needs but also met the needs of the families in their school district.  This could have avoided families feeling uncomfortable and could have avoided numerous legal expenses.
    There is no clear-cut answer as to who should write curriculum.  What is clear to me is that curriculum development needs to be a collaborative effort among many invested parties.  These groups need to consider the needs of the students and families in their local area and if these needs are considered, curriculum could, and should look different across the country.  An effort must be made to consider the needs of the students we are serving.  Data can help us meet these needs by helping those who are developing curriculum determine what should be included and what should not be included.  Those developing curriculum also need to ensure that they are advocating the instruction of as many unbiased facts as possible.  If curriculum writers work collaboratively and keep the needs of the students in mind, we are likely to end up with higher quality, more well-rounded curriculum that better serves our students.

References:
McKinley, Jr., J.  2010.  Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change.  New York Times, March 12 

Schiro, S.  2008.  Introduction to the Curriculum Ideologies. Curriculum Theory (Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publishing).

Stolzenberg, N.  1993.  He Drew a Circle that Shut Me Out.  Harvard Law Review 106 (3):  581-667.